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World of Warcraft Priest Guide

Last Update: July 2006

Contact: [email protected]

Website: http://www.killerguides.com

© Copyright www.killerguides.com 2006. All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... - 1 -

2. Priest Basics ....................................................................................................... - 2 -

2.1. Character Creation.......................................................................................... - 2 -

2.1.1. Statistics and Their Role ............................................................................. - 2 -

2.1.2. Starting Statistics ........................................................................................ - 3 -

2.1.3. Character Choices ...................................................................................... - 3 -

2.1.4. Racial Abilities............................................................................................. - 4 -

2.1.5. Racial Spells ............................................................................................... - 6 -

2.1.6. Conclusion .................................................................................................. - 8 -

3. Skills.................................................................................................................. - 10 -

3.1. Skill Listing .................................................................................................... - 10 -

3.2. Discussion..................................................................................................... - 10 -

4. Talents .............................................................................................................. - 17 -

4.1. Holy Tree ...................................................................................................... - 17 -

4.1.1. Talent Tree................................................................................................ - 17 -

4.1.2. Talent Discussion...................................................................................... - 20 -

4.2. Discipline Tree .............................................................................................. - 24 -

4.2.1. Talent Tree................................................................................................ - 24 -


4.3. Shadow Tree................................................................................................. - 31 -

4.3.1. Talent Tree................................................................................................ - 31 -


5. Talent Builds ..................................................................................................... - 39 -

5.1. Shadow Leveling Build.................................................................................. - 39 -

5.2. Pure PvP Build.............................................................................................. - 43 -

5.3. Discipline Build.............................................................................................. - 46 -

5.4. Healing Build................................................................................................. - 50 -

5.5. Tri-Build......................................................................................................... - 53 -

6. Priest Strategies................................................................................................ - 57 -

6.1. Solo Strategies.............................................................................................. - 57 -

I


6.2. Grinding Locations ........................................................................................ - 61 -

6.3. Group Strategies........................................................................................... - 66 -

6.3.1. Healing as you Level................................................................................. - 66 -

6.3.2. Healing at 60............................................................................................. - 67 -

6.3.3. Healing and Threat.................................................................................... - 68 -

6.3.4. Instance List .............................................................................................. - 69 -

6.4. PvP Strategies .............................................................................................. - 71 -

6.5. Class Strategies............................................................................................ - 72 -

6.5.1. Druid.......................................................................................................... - 72 -

6.5.2. Hunter ....................................................................................................... - 73 -

6.5.3. Mage ......................................................................................................... - 73 -

6.5.4. Paladin ...................................................................................................... - 74 -

6.5.5. Priest ......................................................................................................... - 75 -

6.5.6. Rogue........................................................................................................ - 75 -

6.5.7. Shaman..................................................................................................... - 76 -

6.5.8. Warlock ..................................................................................................... - 77 -

6.5.9. Warrior ...................................................................................................... - 78 -

6.6. Honour Kills and Contribution Points ............................................................ - 79 -

7. Making Gold...................................................................................................... - 81 -

7.1. Locations for Grinding................................................................................... - 83 -

7.2. Auction House Items..................................................................................... - 84 -

8. Professions ....................................................................................................... - 87 -

8.1. Primary Professions...................................................................................... - 87 -

8.2. Secondary Professions ................................................................................. - 89 -

8.3. Suggested Professions ................................................................................. - 89 -

9. Gear .................................................................................................................. - 91 -

10. Appendix a ...................................................................................................... - 107 -

10.1. Skill listing ................................................................................................... - 107 -

© Copyright www.killerguides.com 2006. All rights reserved.

II


1. Introduction Welcome to the guide for all budding young priests out there. You have taken the first

step in becoming the best possible priest. The priest class is most commonly known as

the primary healer in the game, but through following this guide you can learn how to

dominate PvP, easily solo to level 60, and also how to effectively function in groups. You

will be the most in demand class in the game, constantly being invited to join groups to

access high-end gear and content. You can easily kill any other class in PvP.

- 1 -


2. Priest Basics The priest is a class that relies on healing and mitigating damage to survive. With the

ability to wear only Cloth armour, you are unable to take any significant physical damage.

To alleviate this, the priest has access to strong heals, buffs, and debuffs. In groups you

will be the primary healer, it is your job in this situation to keep everyone else alive. In

solo play you may kill slower than other classes, but using the right build you can level at

a quick pace with minimal risk of death.

2.1. Character Creation

2.1.1. Statistics and Their Role

There are 5 different stats that every class in World of Warcraft uses. For a priest, there

are 3 main stats which you focus your character around. These are Stamina, Intellect and

Spirit.

• Strength (STR) increases your attack power. Priests can and do attack between

spells, but forgoing other stats for strength is not worth the investment.

• Agility (AGI) increases armour, dodge and crit chance, and attack power with

ranged weapons. This is a mostly average stat for any priest. It can increase the damage

of your wand, and combined with Wand Specilization, can be moderately effective. Some

pieces of armour will have this as an additional stat, and this is the only situation where

you should add agility to your gear.

• Stamina (STA) increases your health points. One point of stamina is equal to ten

hit points. This is an essential stat, especially for priests focusing on PvP.

• Intellect (INT) increases your mana, your rate at which you learn weapon skills,

and you chance to score a critical hit with spells. This is the most important stat for

priests, because for priests, mana can equal life. Because you can heal any damage you

take, and buff your hit points with shields, the more mana you have the longer you can do

this for. Try and get equipment with high INT.

• Spirit (SPI) affects health and mana regeneration. This stat is less important than

stamina or intellect, but can be used to great effect in certain builds. 3 points of SPI is

roughly equal to 1 mana regen per tick. When leveling, its often a tactic to swap INT/STA

equipment for INT/SPI equipment. This works particularly well when combined with Spirit

Tap for reducing downtime.

- 2 -


2.1.2. Starting Statistics

Below are the starting stats for each race.

Strength Agility Stamina Intellect Spirit

Dwarf 23 19 24 19 20

Human 20 20 20 22 23

Night Elf 24 19 23 17 22

Troll 26 18 23 16 22

Undead 21 24 22 17 22

Starting stats should not really play a role in race choice. Towards the end of the game

items add large amounts of stat points, balancing any difference between initial values.

More discussion on the pros and cons of each stat will be discussed in the equipment

section.

2.1.3. Character Choices

Before you venture into the lands of World of Warcraft you must first create a character.

There are a number of choices you must face when deciding who your priest will be. The

first choice you must make is a server choice. In World of Warcraft there are 3 different

server rulesets. The first is normal, in which you cannot be attacked by player controlled

members of the opposing faction at any time. If you prefer killing monsters to people, then

this is the server for you. The second is roleplaying. These servers encourage absolute

immersion in the world. If you enjoy roleplaying your character then this is the server for

you. The third server type is PvP. If you decide on a PvP server, any members of the

opposing faction will be able to attack you at any time, in contested territory.

Now that you have chosen your server, you have to decide upon a faction. There are two

choices – Alliance and the Horde. The alliance consists of Humans, Dwarves, Gnomes

and Night Elves. The Horde includes Undead, Trolls, Tauren and Orcs.

The next step is to choose a race. The priest class is playable by 5 different races. On

the Alliance side, Humans, Dwarves and Night Elves can play as priests. For the Horde,

- 3 -


Undead and Troll races can choose priest. Choosing the correct race is very important

when playing a priest, as you gain access to additional spells and abilities.

2.1.4. Racial Abilities

Dwarf

• Stoneform - active

o While active, grants immunity to Bleed, Poison, and Disease effects. In

addition, Armour increases by 5% and speed reduced to 70% of normal. Lasts 20

sec. - 3 min cooldown

• Gun Specialization - passive

o Dwarves get +5 to Gun Skill

• Frost Resistance - passive

o All Dwarves get +10 Cold Resistance

• Treasure Finding - passive

o Activate to see treasure chests on mini map - lasts until canceled - no

cooldown

Human

• Perception - active

o Activate to increase stealth detection radius by 10 yards - lasts 20 sec - 3

min cooldown

• The Human Spirit - passive

o Increase Spirit by 5%

• Diplomacy - passive

o 10% bonus to faction point gain

• Sword Specialization - passive

o Humans get +5 to Sword skill

• Mace Specialization - passive

o Humans get +5 to Mace skill

- 4 -


Night Elves

• Shadowmeld - active

o Activate while immobile and out of combat to enter stealth mode - lasts until

canceled - no cooldown

• Quickness - passive

o Dodge chance increased by 1%

• Wisp Spirit - passive

o Become a wisp when dead with movement speed increase of 50% (25%

faster than normal ghost)

• Nature Resistance - passive

o All Night Elves get +10 Nature Resistance

Trolls

• Berserking - active

o Usable after being the target of a critical hit. Increases melee, ranged and

spell casting speed by 25% but increases all damage taken by 10% for the

duration.

• Regeneration - passive

o 10% health regen bonus, 10% active in combat

• Beast Slaying - passive

o 5% damage bonus to Beasts

• Throwing Weapon Specialization - passive

o +5 to Throwing Weapon skill

Undead

• Will of the Forsaken - active

o Activate to become immune to fear, sleep, and charm effects - lasts 20 sec

- 3 min cooldown

• Cannibalize - active

- 5 -


o Increase health regeneration by 200% while consuming a corpse - lasts 15

sec - 3 min cooldown

• Underwater Breathing - passive

o Underwater breath increased by 4x (400%)

• Shadow Resistance - passive

o All Undead get +10 Shadow Resistance

2.1.5. Racial Spells

In addition to these racial abilities, each race gets two specific racial spells. These are

accessable through a quest, which simply involves talking to a specific priest trainer at

your race’s major city.

Dwarf

• Desperate Prayer (available level 10)

o This spell instantly heals the caster for a significant amount. It has no

mana cost so can be used at any time. However, it has a 30 minute cooldown. A

good skill to use in a desperate situation.

• Fear Ward (available level 20)

o Wards any friendly target against fear for 10 minutes. The next fear spell

cast against the target will be resisted. This is a fantastic spell for PvP to use

against other priests and warlocks.

Human

• Desperate Prayer (available level 10)

o This spell instantly heals the caster for a significant amount. It has no

mana cost so can be used at any time. However, it has a 30 minute cooldown. A

good skill to use in a desperate situation

• Feedback (available level 20)

o Enchants the priest to cause feedback on enemy targets. Each successful

spell cast on the priest will drain mana. For each point of mana drained in this way,

the target takes 1 damage. Overall an average spell.

- 6 -


Night Elves

• Starshards (available level 10)

o A channeled spell which deals arcane damage over time. The damage

iterations increase as the spell is channeled, with more damage being dealt

towards the end. Can deal a good amount of damage for a holy oriented priest

who does not have access to mind flay, but is not the most mana efficient damage

spell available.

• Elune’s Grace (available level 20)

o Reduces range damage taken by a set amount, and increase dodge for 15

seconds. Has the possibility to be useful in a pinch, but don’t use it against

warriors or overpower will destroy you.

Trolls

• Hex of Weakness (available level 10)

o Weakens the target enemy, reducing physical damage caused, as well as

now reducing healing. An average useful as a starter for young priests, this spell

is now also very effective in the end game , especially in PvP combat. Throw it on

opposition healers when they are alone, or the flag carrier in Warsong to make

your team love you.

• Shadowguard (available level 20)

o The caster is surrounded by shadows. When a melee or ranged attacker

hits the caster, the attacker will be struck for shadow damage. Attackers can only

be damaged once every few seconds. 3 charges. Lasts 10 minutes. A good

source of additional damage which can be cast outside of battle to conserve mana.

This spell works in a similar fashion to the shaman’s lightning shield, but causes no

threat.

Undead

• Touch of Weakness (available level 10)

o The next melee attack by the caster causes additional shadow damage,

and reduces the damage caused by the target for 2 minutes. It’s 64 damage at

level 60, which is negligible. The damage reduction is -20, which is also negligible.

Similar situational use to the Troll ability Hex of Weakness.

• Devouring Plague (available level 20)

- 7 -


o Affects the target with a disease that causes shadow damage over 24

seconds. Damage caused by Devouring Plague heals the caster for and equal

amount. This is a great spell for one on one PvP, adding significant damage over

time. A high mana cost makes it restrictive in PvE combat.

2.1.6. Conclusion

Every race is suitable for play as a priest – but some have significant advantages over

others in certain areas.

Dwarves

Dwarves make very good priests for the Alliance. Their racial abilities, while better suited

to some other classes, are nice, especially the active skill Stoneform. Desperate Prayer

can help prevent a group wipe in a nasty situation, and can help escape in PvP. Fear

Ward is among the best of the race specific spells available to the class, especially in end

game PvE situations, against bosses with fear. The best class for PvE priests.

Humans

Humans rank slightly lower than Dwarves as priests. They also have access to Desperate

Prayer, which, as mentioned above, can be very useful at times. The race ability The

Human Spirit is also nice for priests focusing on high amounts of spirit. Overall a good

choice for any priest. Additionally, Diplomacy is extremely useful, as a large portion of the

end game focuses on gaining reputation.

Night Elves

The 2 racial spells available to Night Elves are sub-par, only helping them in limited

situations. However, this is alleviated by their active racial ability Shadowmeld.

Shadowmeld is very useful on PvP servers to escape from gankers or to ambush any by

passers. It can also be used when going AFK to prevent death from creatures or players.

After having Shadowmeld, you will not want to play without it.

- 8 -


Trolls

Despite recent buffs, troll priests are still not as effective as undead for the Horde.

Berserking is not bad now, especially when fighting rogues, who crit often, but the other 3

racial skills are lackluster. The racial spells they have access to are also on the lower end

of the scale.

Undead

Undead priests are very strong, far better than their troll counterparts, especially in PvP

combat. Will of the Forsaken is one of the best racial abilities available in the game, and

can turn the tide of battle. They also have access to an additional DoT (damage over

time) spell, that also heals for the damage it deals, which makes them the obvious choice

for the Horde priest.

However, the racial abilities should not be the deciding factor on your class choice.

Choose whatever suits your play style best.

- 9 -


3. Skills

3.1. Skill Listing

For a listing of skills, mana cost, range and description by level, see appendix a.

3.2. Discussion

Abolish Disease

At level 32 this skill becomes available as a replacement for Cure Disease. For 40 mana

more than Cure Disease, it abolishes 1 disease every 5 seconds for 20 seconds. Once

this becomes available, this should be your main method of curing diseases.

Cure Disease

Use this skill until abolish disease is available. It’s generally best to save your mana for

heals when in groups, unless it is a disease that causes damage or drains mana. Wait

until after the battle to removes diseases. It’s up to your discretion whether to cure a

disease mid battle.

Dispel Magic

This is a fantastic spell for PvP and a useful spell in some PvE situations. Unless you are

being ganked, you should begin every fight with a dispel magic. All the armour increasing

spells are dispel able, as are health and mana buffs. Potion effects are also dispel able.

Against most classes you will need to cast this twice to remove all the buffs. This can also

be used to remove SW:Pain when fighting priests and a number of Warlock DoT’s. It can

also remove the negative effects of a Shaman’s shocks. Dispel magic now checks that a

target can be dispelled before expending any mana, which has made it even more

powerful.

Divine Spirit

This is an average spell, which has been improved by its new position in the talent tree. It

synergises well with other priest talents also. It is always nice to have an extra buff

available to give to your party. 3 points of Spirit = 1 mana per tick, so at max level this

gives an extra 11 mana per tick. There is no hard or soft cap on spirit, but it is less useful

- 10 -


because of 5 second rule, which means mana cannot be regenerated until 5 seconds after

a spell has been cast.

Fade

Fade is an essential spell in any group situation. At higher levels, elite mobs can plow

through your health in seconds. This removes a set amount of agro, hopefully enabling

the tank to resume his role. How Fade works in regards to agro reduction is complicated,

and will be explained in another section. This is a spell that should be on any healer’s

hotbar.

Flash Heal

Flash heal is a fast casting, medium healing spell. It is less mana efficient than Greater

Heal, but can be more effective in situations where damage fluctuates. In the end game

raid instances, Flash Heal will be your primary healing spell in most situations, combined

with Renew. Critical hits and monster damage at that level is so high that tanks can die

before a Greater Heal can be accomplished. You should also use this heal on any other

cloth wearers in your group.

Greater Heal

Greater Heal has a long cast time but heals for a large amount. It is also affected by more

talents than Flash Heal. With all talents applied, Greater Heal is the most mana efficient

heal, assuming no healing is wasted. With the recent talent changes, Greater Heal has

become a lot more attractive as a main healing spell. It now has a 3 second base cast

time, which can be further reduced to 2.5 seconds with talents. It is now possible to use

this as a primary heal, combined mainly with Renew to keep a tank topped up.

Heal

Heal, Lesser Heal and Greater Heal all have the same mana efficiency in terms of health

per mana point, so they are essentially the same spell. Once Greater Heal is available at

level 40, Heal becomes obsolete.

- 11 -


Holy Fire

Holy Fire no longer requires a point in the Holy tree, and thus is a stronger spell. It has a

long casting time (which can be reduced with talents). As the damage is split between an

initial burst, then a DoT element over ten seconds, it is more effective as an opener than

when used constantly. Use this when pulling in PvE, and in some PvP builds with certain

specs and gear.

Holy Nova

Now an 11 point talent, Holy Nova is more a fun spell to spam than a useful talent point.

The best element of this spell is that it creates no threat, which means it can be used with

impunity in situations where mana is not a concern (such as the Vael fight). It can also be

useful in battlegrounds, where it is sometimes difficult to use your mana before dying.

Inner Fire

The best armour buff spell in the game in terms of damage reduction. This should more

than double your base armour, which can be helpful for paper-thin priests. The spell now

lasts 10 minutes, but comes with a rather limited 20 charges. The armour value of each

level has been increased, making it a stronger spell on a whole, with a slight down side.

Lesser Heal

Lower rank of Greater Heal with a shorter cast time but the same mana efficiency. Only

useful at low levels.

Levitate

This spell is fun when you first get it at level 34. After a few test runs, it becomes

apparent how useless and restrictive it is. It can be used in instances to get to a better

spot to heal from, but very rarely. Any damage will cancel the effect, as will entering the

water. This would be an average spell if it didn’t have a reagent. Adding in a reagent that

can’t be purchased and can only be found on mobs 20 levels below you when it finally

becomes available, makes this pretty much worthless. It prevents damage when falling

from heights.

- 12 -


Mana Burn

In PvE, this spell is rather limited. However, this is an awesome PvP spell, especially

against hybrid classes, like paladins and shamans. Burning their mana not only prevents

them from healing, it damages them at the same time. It is not worth using on mages or

druids, as their mana pools tend to be too large for it to have an effect. Against any hybrid

class, however, it dominates them.

Mind Blast

Mind Blast is the bread and butter damage spell of every priest. It has a short cast time,

fair mana cost, and good damage. The cooldown prevents spamming, but it should be

cast whenever available. It is less mana efficient than Mind Flay, but can critical for a

large amount. The short cast time makes it harder to interrupt when PW:Shield is down.

Mind Control

Mind Control is a fun and useful spell in certain situations. In PvE situations, it can be

used to eliminate 1 or two mobs from linked groups, allowing for easier killing. When Mind

Controlling NPC characters, you gain access to all of their abilities. This can be used to

great effect when you have another healer in the group. By using Mind Control in an

instance, you can eliminate 1 mob from a group. However, when Mind Control breaks,

be aware that agro will go to you, and virtually nothing can remove agro. You need to

have a good group or be significantly higher than the mobs for this to be an effective

strategy.

In PvP this spell can be used in a number of ways. If you DoT an opponent before Mind

Controlling them, they will take damage from your spell while being under your control.

You can also use this to flee, by running an enemy as far away as possible from you, and

then running in the opposite direction. Mind Control can also be used to kill players and

NPCs through the environment. For example, you can throw enemies off the Great Lift in

the Barrens to a guaranteed death. In PvP situations Mind Control rarely lasts more than

15 seconds, and is subject to diminishing returns.

Mind Flay

Mind Flay is the best damage spell available to the shadow specced priest. At max level,

it deals 2.1 damage per point of mana, making it the most mana efficient spell, even

- 13 -


beating out a talent-upgraded SW:Pain. It also slows by 50%. The downside of this spell

is that it is channeled, meaning that without a shield up, any mob attacking will interrupt,

reducing the damage caused.

Mind Soothe

A situational use which has undergone many changes since its original version. It now

casts instantly, but still only works on humanoid targets. BEWARE: it can cause agro if

the spell fails, and may wipe your group if you have insufficient +hit or –resist gear.

Mind Vision

This spell has limited applications but can be fun nonetheless. The second level,

available at level 44, significantly improves it, making it castable on creatures out of your

line of sight, up to a maximum range of 10’000 yards. This can be used to great effect for

exploring new areas, by chain casting this on each mob you see until you reach your goal.

Power Word: Fortitude

This is the priest’s best buff spell and adds a significant amount of hit points. At level 60,

it boosts stamina by 54 unbuffed, or 70 points of stamina full buffed through talents. This

equates to an additional 700 hit points for everyone in your party. This should always be

active wherever you go. Try to cast it before traveling to allow your health and mana to

regenerate, as at level 60 it costs a whopping 1695 mana to cast. Also available is Prayer

of Fortitude, which buffs your entire party at the same time, with a reagent cost. Prayer of

Fortitude is only available through a random world drop from high end instances.

Power Word: Shield

This is the class defining spell for the priests, the spell that separates us from the other

healing classes and makes us the best. It is an instant cast shield which absorbs 942

damage at level 60. This spell can help save a party member that would otherwise have

died, allowing a few seconds to cast a healing spell.

It also is useful when soloing for preventing interruption through damage to your spell

casting. Apply this before the battle begins and wait 5-10 seconds to regenerate some

mana. When you cast this spell, the target is also afflicted with the “Weakened Soul”

- 14 -


effect, which prevents re-casting within 30 seconds. This time can be reduced through

talents.

Prayer of Healing

Prayer of Healing is another spell which separates the priest from the other healing

classes. While druids have access to a HoT channeled group heal, priests are the only

class with access to an immediate heal for an entire party. This is a fantastic spell to use

when multiple members of your group have sustained damage and are in danger. The

breakpoint for mana efficiency is 3 members. If three people in your group are going to be

healed for the full amount from this spell, use it. Other wise stick to Flash Heal.

Psychic Scream

Psychic Scream is the spell that wins duels for priests. It is the spell that people will

complain about when you beat them over and over again. When you fear someone, you

have 8 seconds (when it is not resisted or breaks early) to heal, deal some damage, or

run away. During this time you should be able to take down a significant chunk of their

life, or put some distance between yourself and a ganker, allowing you to escape. Use

this sparingly in PvE situations, as any mobs that run into other groups will bring adds

when they return.

Renew

Renew is a mana efficient heal over time, which can be used to mitigate damage or heal

while drinking after a battle. Without talents, it is an average spell. With all talents,

applied, it becomes exceptional, healing for an additional 25% and costing 10% less mana

to cast. Use Renew on your tank at the start of a battle to keep his life up, and on any

other classes who take damage momentarily.

Resurrection

A great spell to have in any group situation. This spell brings a dead player back to life

with some health and mana. However, Resurrection cannot be cast in combat. Druids

are the only class who have access to a combat res. If you are looking to save money for

a mount or an equipment upgrade, or are just strapped for cash, leave this skill at base

level. Because it can only be used out of combat, a resurrected player can just drink and

eat to refill his bars.

- 15 -


Shackle Undead

This spell is good in limited situations. It is the priest’s only true form of crowd control, and

is very good in areas with lots of Undead, such as Duskwood and the Scholomance

instance. Elsewhere it is useless.

Shadow Protection

This adds a significant amount of shadow resistance and can greatly hamper an enemy

warlock, whom have a number of shadow-based damage spells. Against other priests, it

will be dispelled, and therefore not really effective. Certain mobs also cast shadow (for

example, Shadowcasters in the Zul’furrak instance), so cast this on your party before

engaging them. Otherwise it’s not worth the mana.

Shadow Word: Pain

Shadow Word: Pain (or SW: Pain for short) is the main source of damage for every priest,

in both PvP and PvE damage. It is the best DoT in the game, because it is instant cast,

meaning it can be cast on the run, facing any direction, and has a respectable damage to

mana ratio. Keep this on your opponent at all times in a PvP situation. If you die while

you enemy is at low health, it is likely that SW: Pain will finish them off. The talent

associated with this spill increases its effectiveness and efficiency further, and is worth

taking.

Smite

Smite is a sub-par damage spell which nevertheless remains an essential part of a Holy-

specced priest’s damage arsenal. It is mana inefficient in comparison to other spells, but

is necessary to cast during the cooldown of Mind Blast. A Shadow-specced priest should

never use this spell once Mind Flay is available, and it is not worth purchasing the

advanced levels. Save your money for your mount. Unfortunately for Holy priests, they

have to use it to survive. Because of the structural changes to the Holy tree, smite has

now become more effective on a whole, and can be used to farm in both PvP and PvE.

- 16 -


4. Talents Like every class, the priest’s talents are divided into three sections; Holy, Discipline and

Shadow. Unlike many other classes, however, two of the trees are almost mutually

exclusive. Because the priest has been designed to be played as the primary healer in a

group and an effective solo character, there are 2 trees dedicated to those specific roles.

Holy focuses mainly on improving healing spells, while the Shadow tree is majority

focused on doing damage.

The “other” tree, Discipline, is the bread and butter of every priest. Virtually every priest

will call themselves “Holy” or “Shadow” specced, and rarely “Discipline”. However, most

every priest does and should take at least 8 of the Discipline talents.

4.1. Holy Tree

As previously stated, the Holy tree is focused around improving heals, as well as holy

spells. In a strange design choice by Blizzard, the best talents are at the bottom of the

tree. The further up you go, the less powerful the talents become. To be the best

possible healer, the Holy tree is absolutely necessary. However, until the end game

instances, it is entirely possible to be an adequate healer without any points in either Holy

or Discipline. It is much easier on the group and the priest if he or she has spent at least

15 points in the holy tree, however, when it comes to the raid-based instances at level 60.

Most players choose to level as a shadow-specced priest, and the respec at or near 60 to

get some talents in the holy tree.

4.1.1. Talent Tree

Name Tier Description

Improved Renew 1

Rank 1 Increases the amount healed by your Renew spell by 5%.



Healing Focus 1

Rank 1 Gives you a 35% chance to avoid interruption

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caused by damage while casting any healing spell.

Rank 1 Gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting any healing spell.

Holy Specialization 1

Rank 1 Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 1%.





Spell Warding 2

Rank 1 Reduces all spell damage taken by 2%.





Divine Fury 2

Rank 1 Reduces the casting time of your Smite, Holy Fire, Heal and Greater Heal spells by -0.1 sec.





Holy Nova 3

Rank 1

Causes an explosion of holy light around the caster, causing 28 to 32 Holy damage to all enemy targets within 10 yards and healing all party members within 10 yards for 52 to 60. These effects cause no threat.

Inspiration 3

Rank 1 Increases your target's Armour by 8% for 15 seconds after getting a critical effect from your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, or Prayer of Healing spell.

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Blessed Recovery 3

Rank 1 After being struck by a melee or ranged critical hit,

heal 8% of the damage taken over 6 seconds.

Rank 2 After being struck by a melee or ranged critical hit, heal 16% of the damage taken over 6 seconds.

Rank 3 After being struck by a melee or ranged critical hit, heal 25% of the damage taken over 6 seconds.

Holy Reach 4

Rank 1

Increases the range of your Smite and Holy Fire

spells and the radius of your Prayer of Healing and

Holy Nova spells by 10%.

Rank 2 Increases the range of your Smite and Holy Fire spells and the radius of your Prayer of Healing and Holy Nova spells by 10%.

Searing Light 4 Requires 5 points in Divine Fury

Rank 1 Increases the damage of your Smite and Holy Fire spells by 5%.


Improved Healing 4

Rank 1 Reduces the Mana cost of your Lesser Heal, Heal, and Greater Heal spells by -5%.



Improved Prayer of Healing 5

Rank 1 Reduces the Mana cost of your Prayer of Healing spell by 10%.

Rank 2 Reduces the Mana cost of your Prayer of Healing spell by 20%.


Spirit of Redemption 5

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Rank 1

Upon death, the priest becomes the Spirit of Redemption for 10 seconds. The Spirit of Redemption cannot move, attack, be attacked or targeted by any spells or effects. While in this form the priest can cast any healing spell free of cost. When the effect ends, the priest dies.

Spiritual Guidance 5

Rank 1 Increases spell damage and healing by up to 5% of your total Spirit.





Spiritual Healing 6

Rank 1 Increases the amount healed by your healing spells by 2%.





Lightwell 7 Requires 1 point in Spirit of Redemption

Rank 1

Creates a holy Lightwell near the priest. Friendly targets can click the Lightwell to restore 800 health over 10 seconds. Being attacked cancels the effect. Lightwell lasts for 3 minutes or 5 charges.

4.1.2. Talent Discussion

Improved Renew

Improved Renew is a great talent, especially useful because it is situated on tier 1 of the

talent tree. Combined with Spiritual Healing, Renew heals for an extra 25% every tick, a

significant amount. A fully talent-improved Renew becomes the second most effective

heal in terms of health per mana spent, only behind Greater Heal. Renew is a great spell

to use on tanks before battle, to help mitigate some of the initial damage, and the low

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mana cost makes it useful to use on any of the other party members who happen to take

some damage, but are not in immediate danger.

Holy Specialization

Combined with a bonus from Intellect, this should take your critical chance to around 10%.

This is another good talent situated so low in the tree, but is overshadowed by its rival

Improved Renew + Healing Focus. Critical heals can be lifesavers, but are generally too

unreliable to be useful, and in most cases the extra healing will go to waste. It is more

effective to those who like to use Flash Heal over Greater Heal, because the criticals have

more chance of healing for the full amount. Healing crits have been fixed recently, making

this a more viable talent, but still underwhelming.

Healing Focus

This is one of the best talents in the game, and should be taken by any priest regardless

of what their role will be. It costs only 2 talent points, is situated on the first tier, and is a

huge boost to effectiveness. Brilliant in both PvE and PvP. A must have talent.

Spell Warding

This talent is not a bad alternative to Divine Fury or a full Tier 1 build in some

circumstances. It can come in handy in PvP against casters. However, the strength of

priests against most of the casting classes, makes this talent less attractive. Against

mages, for example, the reduction is not enough to prevent instant death from a Trinket

mage who blows cooldowns. Perhaps more helpful against hybrids, such as shaman and

paladins.

Divine Fury

This is quite a useful talent for those spending points past the first tier. It affects both

healing and the damage dealing role of a priest, so it gets bonus points there.

Additionally, it helps in an area that holy priests usually suffer; dealing damage. It also

makes Greater Heal a 2.5 second cast, making it extremely useful as a main healing spell.

Blessed Recovery

A good talent on paper that is unfortunately let down in practice. The way the heal is

calculated makes this talent sub-par. The amount to be healed depends on the most

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recent critical hit, rather than the highest, so huge crits can be overwritten by smaller

ones. This is especially noticable against rogues, who crit often, with large and small

amounts.

Inspiration

This talent is average at best. In theory, it can be very useful. With a group of priests all

healing the one tank, Inspiration could be applied almost continually. However, it is rare

to find one priest with this talent, let alone an entire group devoted to it. Another downside

to this talent is the fact that armour in high numbers is affected by diminishing returns,

meaning some of the effect of his talent will be wasted on your plate-wearing tanks.

Holy Reach

Talents that increase range are generally considered essential in most builds. Holy

Reach is not essential in the sense that Shadow Reach is, but it is still a nice talent to

have. If you plan on doing any PvP as a Holy priest, you should definitely consider this

talent. Otherwise, it becomes less attractive.

Improved Healing

This is the point in the tree when the effectiveness of the talents becomes questionable.

15% reduced mana cost is a significant amount, and further improves and already very

mana efficient spell, but using Greater Heal over Flash Heal can be a risk. The

effectiveness of this talent (and the entire tree) has been greatly improved by the

reduction in cast time of Greater Heal. This now synergises very well with Divine Fury,

and Greater Heal can be used as an effective main heal. A worthwhile talent for healing

priests.

Searing Light

Useful only if you intend to PvP, or have no ability to make cash other than through

farming. A smite based damage build can be fun in both PvP and PvE, and although not

as powerful as a Shadow priest, is till a viable alternative. I would suggest taking this if

you ever need to farm or want to PvP, and you have spent the points to get this far in the

tree.

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Spirit of Redemption

This talent is extremely powerful in certain situations, and you will see a lot of angels

appearing, especially in battlegrounds. This is the ultimate talent for PvP healers, as it

can change the tide of battle. The most effective way to overcome an opposition force is

to remove their healer, but with this talent you will have 10 free seconds of healing ability

after dying. As priests are often the first target, this can be a great way to change the tide

of battle.

Spiritual Healing

Every healer should have this talent. 10% extra to every single heal you make separates

you from the wannabe Shadow priests who think they can heal as well as you.. This is an

essential talent for any healer. It now requires a heavier talent investment that previously,

but that has not reduced its effectiveness as a healing talent. If you have spent the points

to get this far, take this talent.

Lightwell

A talent of questionable effect, and with the structure of the trees, not really worth an

investment. By spending a point here, you will miss out on other, stronger 21 point

talents. Of possible use if you are designated to healing rogues in raids, for example.

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4.2. Discipline Tree

The discipline tree is the all-round tree useful for every priest. It is focused on improving

efficiency and mana, as well as boosting many often-used skills. I would recommend

every priest spend at least 8 points in the tree to get Improved Power Word: Shield as

quickly as possible. This talent makes a lot of difference. The most effective healing build

actually has more points in the Discipline tree than the Holy tree.

4.2.1. Talent Tree

Name Tier Description Unbreakable Will 1

Rank 1 Increases your chance to resist Stun, Fear, and Silence effects by 3%.





Wand Specialization 1

Rank 1 Increases your damage with Wands by 5%.





Silent Resolve 2

Rank 1 Reduces the threat generated by your spells by 4%.





Martyrdom 2

Rank 1 Gives you a 50% chance to gain the Focused Casting effect that lasts for 6 seconds after being the victim of a critical strike. The Focused Casting effect prevents you

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from losing casting time when taking damage.

Rank 2

Gives you a 100% chance to gain the Focused Casting effect that lasts for 6 seconds after being the victim of a critical strike. The Focused Casting effect prevents you from losing casting time when taking damage.

Improved Power Word: Shield 2

Rank 1 Increases the damage absorbed by your Power Word: Shield by 5%.



Improved Power Word: Fortitude 2

Rank 1 Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude and Prayer of Fortitude spells by 15%.

Rank 2 Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude and Prayer of Fortitude spells by 30%.

Inner Focus 3

Rank 1 When activated, reduces the Mana cost of your next spell by -100% and increases its critical effect chance by 25% if it is capable of a critical effect.

Meditation 3

Rank 1 Allows 3% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.



Improved Inner Fire 4

Rank 1 Increases the effects of your Inner Fire spell by 10%.



Mental Agility 4

Rank 1 Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by 2%.





Improved Mana Burn 4

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Rank 1 Reduces the casting time of your Mana Burn spell by -0.2 secs.

Rank 2 Reduces the casting time of your Mana Burn spell by -0.5 sec.

Mental Strength 5

Rank 1 Increases your maximum Mana by 2%.





Divine Spirit 5 Requires 4 points in Meditation

Rank Holy power infuses the target, increasing their Spirit by 17 for 30 minutes.

Force of Will 6

Rank 1 Increases your spell damage by 1% and the critical strike chance of your offensive spells by 1%.





Divine Spirit 7 Requires 5 points in Mental Strength

Rank 1 Infuses the target with power, increasing their spell damage and healing by 20%. Lasts 15 seconds.


Unbreakable Will

This is a fantastic talent that should be taken by every priest. Resisting stun is essential

to beat any rogue in PvP, and in PvE situations, Silence and Fear can really cause bad

things for the party. It’s a 5 point wonder talent, much better than silent resolve, and

taking 5 points allows you to access the all important second-tier talents in the Discipline

tree.

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Wand Specialization

This talent almost seems thrown in because Blizzard could not be bothered to think of

anything else. Wands can make up a good part of the DpS of a soloing priest, particularly

those not specced in the Shadow tree. However, boosting their damage by 25% for the

cost of 5 talent points is not worth it in any way. There are much better ways to increase

damage in all three trees. Don’t waste any talent points on this spell.

Silent Resolve

This talent has been combined with Subtlety from the Holy tree to now reduce threat from

all spells cast by 20% at max level. It is now an excellent spell for healers, and should be

taken by most people who expect to heal in the end game.

Martyrdom

With only 2 talent points invested, Martyrdom allows you to ignore damage interruptions

after being the victim of a critical strike. The talent in itself is not great – critical strikes

occur to rarely to be relied on, and when they do, the can still occur when you don’t need

the focused casting effect. However, spending two talent points here unlocks the

Focused Casting talent, which is quite useful in many situations. Take this talent if you

intend to take Focused Casting. Otherwise, skip it.

Improved Power Word: Shield

This no longer reduces the recast downtime associated with the spell. There is now a 15

second Weakened Soul effect, without talents. Instead, this talent now buffs the damage

absorbed. While not as essential, it is still a good talent, and is the choice here for all

those not engaging in PvE healing.

Improved Power Word: Fortitude

This is a significant buff to an already good skill, and is a talent worth taking. The only

situation where I would suggest not taking this skill is if you are always going to be

grouped with another priest who can buff you with the improved skill. Otherwise, more

health is always a nice thing to have. Take this talent if you intend to head further down

the Discipline tree. The only reason you should not take this talent is if you cannot spare

the 2 points.

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Inner Focus

I really like Inner Focus. It is useful in many situations. For soloing, it can help get off that

last Mind Blast or Psychic Scream to finish off a mob when you are completely out of

mana. It really shines in group situations though, as a last ditch heal to save your party. I

recommend saving it for Prayer of Healing, which costs lots of mana and is not very

efficient. The 25% critical bonus also means that you should get 1 crit out of you party.

Meditation

Meditation is good to take if you plan on healing through long raid battles like Onyxia or

the Molten Core. These can last for long periods, making mana regeneration essential. If

you have 300 spirit, you should be regenerating 100 mana/tick when not casting. That is

15 mana/tick during casting and during the 5 second rule. The 5 second rule is that no

mana can regenerate during the period of 5 seconds after a spell is cast. While this talent

is not superb, it should be taken if you plan to heal effectively.

Improved Inner Fire

Inner Fire is a good spell because it adds a significant amount of armour for little mana.

However, it doesn’t do enough to warrant improvement and an investment of 3 talent

points which would be better spent elsewhere. You only have 51 talent points to spend,

and it is better to save the three from here and put them into Mental Agility or anything

else, really. At level 60, armour should be around 2000 with gear. Barely enough for any

damage reduction at all. You are better off trying to avoid damage than trying to minimize

it when getting hit. In addition, the armour bonus has been reduced to 30% from 45%,

making this talent less attractive.

Mental Agility

This is another great talent that makes the Discipline line so strong. There are a large

number of instant cast spells available to the priest, and this makes all of them more

efficient. PW: Shield, Renew, and SW: Pain are the main spells that benefit from this

talent, but many more are also effected. This talent also makes you a more efficient

healer by reducing the mana cost of Renew and PW: Sheild. With Improved Renew,

Spiritual Healing and Mental Agility, Renew is the second most mana efficient heal

available.

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Mental Strength

This is another strong talent in the Discipline tree, well worth investing 15 points to access

it and then another 5 to maximize it. 10% mana at level should be between 600 and 800,

depending on gear, which is a significant amount. If you plan on being a healer, you

should take this talent. Shadow priests can also ignore some damage potential in favour

of better survivability by taking this talent. Worth the investment.

Improved Mana Burn

I like this much more than Improved Inner Fire. Mana Burn is very slow to cast with a 3

second casting time. With only 2 talent points, you can reduce that by .5 seconds. This

talent will give you the edge in PvP against other priests, and also against any hybrid

classes. It can also be useful in PvE situations for preventing a mob from healing or

casting status effects by draining their mana. If you have access to it, I would suggest

taking it.

Divine Spirit

Divine Spirit, now requiring 21 talent points as opposed to 31, is a much more attractive

talent. It synergises well with the Holy tree, and is a useful buff for healing. It is also

easier to cast now, with Prayer of Spirit an available drop. If you are going to spend the

points to get this far into the tree, it is worth dropping one in here for the free boost to

spirit.

Force of Will

Force of will is a good talent for soloing Discipline-heavy priests, but not really worth the

talent investment. If it were lower down the tree it would be more useful, but having it so

high means that it costs at least 30 talent points to be able to max it, talents which could

be better spent elsewhere. If you really need a damage boost and have no where else to

spend the points, get it. Otherwise, ignore it.

Power Infusion

This is an exceptional talent, which makes the discipline tree one of the most useful and

versatile trees in the game. It can be used on any target, not just yourself, which is where

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its strength lies. This is a stronger talent than Lightwell, and is comparable in power to

Shadowform. This will get a lot of use, if you choose it, in both PvP and PvE. A build with

31 in Discipline is now my favoured build, simply for versatility and overall strength.

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4.3. Shadow Tree

The Shadow tree contains most of the damage-increasing talents available to the priest.

It is the most well constructed tree, with very few useless talents. It is definitely the tree

you should take if you intend to solo a lot, or if PvP is the final aim for your priest. With

the right talents, you can achieve 35% bonus damage to all your Shadow spells, as well

as having access to Silence and Vampiric Embrace, which heals for each point of damage

you do. Most players take Shadow as their main tree while leveling, and then re-spec for

healing in end game instances.

4.3.1. Talent Tree

Name Tier Description Spirit Tap 1

Rank 1

Gives you a 20% chance to gain a 100% bonus to your Spirit after killing a target that yields experience. For the duration, your Mana may regenerate at a 50% rate while casting. Lasts 15 seconds.

Rank 2


Rank 3


Rank 4


Rank 5


Blackout 1

Rank 1 Gives your Shadow damage spells a 2% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds.



Rank 4 Gives your Shadow damage spells a 8% chance to stun the

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target for 3 seconds.


Shadow Affinity 2

Rank 1 Reduces the threat generated by your Shadow spells by -8%.



Improved Shadow Word: Pain 2

Rank 1 Increases the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by 3.0 sec.

Rank 2 Increases the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by 6.0 sec.

Shadow Focus 2

Rank 1 Reduces your target's chance to resist your Shadow spells by 2%.





Improved Psychic Scream 3

Rank 1 Reduces the cooldown of your Psychic Scream spell by -2.0 sec.

Rank 2 Reduces the cooldown of your Psychic Scream spell by -4.0 sec.

Improved Mind Blast 3

Rank 1 Reduces the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by -0.5 sec.





Mind Flay 3

Rank 1 Assault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing 75

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Shadow damage over 3 seconds and slowing the target to 50% of their movement speed.

Improved Fade 4

Rank 1 Decreases the cooldown of your Fade ability by 3 sec.

Rank 2 Decreases the cooldown of your Fade ability by 6 sec.

Shadow Reach 4

Rank 1 Increases the range of your Shadow damage spells by 6%.



Silence 5 Requires 2 point(s) in Improved Psychic Scream.

Rank Silences the target, preventing them from casting spells for 5 seconds.

Shadow Weaving 4

Rank 1

Your Shadow damage spells have a 20% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to Shadow damage. This vulnerability increases the Shadow damage dealt to your target by 3% and lasts 15 seconds. Stacks up to 5 times.

Rank 2


Rank 3


Rank 4


Rank 5


Vampiric Embrace 5

Rank 1 Afflicts your target with Shadow energy that causes all party members to be healed for 20% of any Shadow damage you deal for 60 seconds.

Improved Vampiric Embrace 5 Requires 1 point in Vampiric Embrace.

Rank 1 Increases the percentage healed by Vampiric Embrace by an additional 5%

Rank 2 Increases the percentage healed by Vampiric Embrace by an additional 10%

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Darkness 6

Rank 1 Increases your Shadow spell damage by 2%.





Shadowform 7 Requires 1 point in Vampiric Embrace

Rank 1

Assume a Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 15% and reducing Physical damage done to you by -15%. However, you may only cast Shadow and Discipline spells while in this form.


Spirit Tap

Spirit Tap is a great talent, virtually essential for any soloing priest. It doubles your regen

after a kill, for a duration of 15 seconds – which is generally long enough for you to be at

full mana after a fight. Moreover, during that 15 seconds, your mana regenerates at 50%

of this rate during casting, which is effectively your natural mana regeneration. This

means that you can chain mobs one after the other without taking a break. This helps

when a pull goes wrong, or when a wandering mob joins the fight, or even when fighting

for limited mobs. With Spirit Tap and high spirit you can chain quite a few mobs before

needing to drink, something other priests can not do.

Blackout

Stuns are very strong in World of Warcraft. They allow you time to recover, time to get off

some damage, or time to heal yourself. More importantly for PvP, they confuse the

enemy. Few people expect to be stunned by a priest at range. PvP is where this talent

shines, and is essential. The stun coming at an opportune moment can turn the tide of

battle your way.

Be aware that only the first tick of any DoT can trigger the stun. This applies to Mind Flay

and Shadow Word: Pain. Also be aware that rank 2 is currently bugged, and does not in

fact ever trigger. I advice getting to rank 3 as quickly as possible.

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Shadow Affinity

While reduced agro is good for some classes, for priests it is a waste of talent points. You

won’t have the opportunity to be a damage dealer in groups because you will be expected

to heal. Don’t take this talent unless you know you are going to be grouping the entire

time with a warrior, for example. It’s useless in solo, and in a group, you shouldn’t be

dealing any damage anyway.

Improved Shadow Word: Pain

This is a great talent. Shadow Word: Pain is our best damage spell, and the best DoT in

the game. It’s instacast, meaning it can be cast on the run, is improved by shadow

damage talents, and is very mana efficient. Increasing its length only makes sense.

There is a common misconception about this talent, that it actually reduces the damage

per tick by extending the duration. This is not the case. You get two more damage

iterations for the same mana cost by maxing this talent. The damage per tick stays the

same. You will notice a difference – it won’t run out before the end of a battle if you have

this talent.

Shadow Focus

Shadow Focus is a talent worth investing some points in. The generally regarded wisdom

is that 3/5 talent points is the way to go with Shadow Focus. This reduces resist chance

by 6%. At this level, I never had resists on mobs 2 levels higher than me. Mobs 3 levels

higher resisted less than they normally would, making them solo-able. More importantly,

3/5 talent points allows you to put 2 into Improved Shadow Word: Pain and not have any

wasted talents.

Improved Psychic Scream

On paper, this doesn’t seem like the best talent. Psychic Scream has a 30 second

cooldown, this talent reduces it to 26 seconds. In practice, this is a great talent for two

reasons – it means you can recast Psychic Scream sooner, essential in PvP situations. It

also grants access to Silence, one of the best spells available to a priest. If you intend on

spending at least 21 point in the Shadow tree to access silence, you should take this

talent. If you only want to go up to Mind Flay, save your points.

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Improved Mind Blast

Mind Blast is the priest’s best damage spell. It has a short cast time and does good

damage. The only downside is the cooldown. This talent reduces that by a significant

amount at level 5, reducing it to a 5.5 second cast. This means you have 5.5 seconds

between casts to wait, which isn’t too bad. You need to take this talent if you intend to

PvP a lot. Mind Blast is the best spell to use in a PvP situation because it isn’t channeled

(like Mind Flay) and can crit.

Mind Flay

Mind Flay is an awesome 1-point wonder talent. It is the most mana efficient damage

spell available to the priest, and can do significant damage when combined with shadow

talents. To top it off, it has a slow effect, preventing running mobs from reaching help. I

would recommend getting this talent as soon as possible. It makes soloing a lot easier,

and reduces downtime greatly (because you will be using less mana).

Improved Fade

In my mind this talent is worthless. Fade, as far as it is understood, reduces a set amount

of agro instantly from the priest. During the period that Fade is active, healing and

damage still causes agro, so increasing the duration really does not help much, if at all.

You would be better suited spending these 2 points in another tree than putting them

here. More on how agro and Fade works will appear later.

Shadow Reach

I really like Shadow Reach. Distance is an important thing in both PvE and PvP. In PvE,

the extra 5 or so yards Shadow Reach affords you can make pulling a lot easier. You can

get off 2 Mind Flays with good timing before a mob even reaches you. The less a mob is

hitting you, the better, and the further away they are, the better. This talent also helps kite

in a PvP situation. You can keep your enemies away from you using Mind Flay and

Psychic Scream.

Silence

The simple fact is: Silence destroys all casters. 5 seconds is a long time without any

heals or damage, and more so, it often confuses your PvP opponents. Cast this on a

Mage in the middle of his casting animation and it you can get at least 8 seconds of free

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time (casting time + silence time). You can also use it on Druids/Shamans/Paladins to

prevent healing. With Silence, you have 2 ways to interrupt spell casting, which gives

every caster a hard time against you.

Shadow Weaving

This is a great talent for adding damage once you have it maxed. After 5 casts your

damage will be increased by 15%. It has 2 downsides – it requires some time to become

fully activated, and it can be dispelled. However, this is worth maxing if you are going to

spend the points to get to 31

Vampiric Embrace

Vampiric Embrace is an excellent talent for any soloist. It generally cannot heal enough to

keep you at full health, but what it is best used for is damage mitigation. Combined with

Renew or Shadowform, Vampiric Embrace can reduce the damage take to an insignificant

amount. It also helps when taking on multiple mobs – it has a 10s recast, so apply it

combined with a SW: Pain on the second mob to help heal while you defeat the first. It

also has a small mana cost, so it should be used in any situation.

Improved Vampiric Embrace

Adds a small amount of additional healing to an already effective spell. This talent isn’t

spectacular, but may be worth taking for pure PvP builds that are heavily shadow focused.

Vampiric Embrace is a talent that can help decide battles, and improving it is not a bad

thing at all.

Darkness

Unlike Shadow Weaving, this is a passive skill, and does not require activation and cannot

be dispelled. It is a great boost to damage and any Shadow specced priest who has

spent the points to access this far down the tree should take this talent.

Shadowform

Shadowform adds a significant amount of damage (15%) and also reduces damage taken

by the same amount. On the downside, you can only cast Shadow and Discipline spells

while in this form. This is the best soloing talent. It makes a huge difference to kill speed

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and damage taken. However, for PvP priests, it is not worth taking. In PvP, the priest’s

number one strength is his ability to heal at any time. You can’t kill fast enough, even in

Shadowform, to not have to heal. The extra damage and damage mitigation afforded by

this spell is not worth sacrificing the versatility of having a number of different healing

spells available. Definitely use it for PvE though.

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5. Talent Builds

Because two of the three talent trees are entirely opposing (Shadow and Holy), the priest

has very little in the form of diversity. There are 2 functions required of the priest: healing

your party members, and killing things in solo play. There are also 1 talent tree devoted to

each aspect, meaning you will have to choose one tree that suits your play style better.

Fortunately in the World of Warcraft respeccing your talents is available. However, it

costs a fee, which increases every time. It is best to know exactly what you want your end

game talents to look like before you start allocating them. In this fashion, all the following

talent trees are based around level 60 characters.

I would recommend that everyone focus on the Shadow tree until at least level 50. There

is absolutely no reason not to. You do not need the extra healing power afforded by the

Holy line until the most difficult instances, which all occur at level 60. The only advantage

a Holy-specced priest has in leveling over a Shadow priest is the ability to do instances at

a lower level than would be the norm.

I would also suggest every priest max Spirit Tap as soon as possible. This will make

soloing a lot less of a chore. The majority of the game is solo-able, and most players

spend the majority of their time out of groups in the early stages. Spirit Tap doubles your

mana regen after a battle, reducing downtime significantly.

Another talent I feel is essential for very priest is Improved Power Word: Shield. This

makes soloing, healing, and PvP much easier. It really is one of the best talents available.

After that, the rest is up to you. Decide what you want to do with your priest, and go with

it.

5.1. Shadow Leveling Build

Shadow Tree

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Spirit Tap

Rank: 5/5

Gives you a 100% chance to gain a 100% bonus to your Spirit after killing a target. For the

duration mana renegnerates at a 50% rate while casting. Lasts 15 secs.

Improved Shadow Word Pain

Rank: 2/2

Increases the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by 6 seconds.

Shadow Focus

Rank: 3/5

Reduces your targets chance to resist your Shadow spells by 6%.


Rank: 2/2

Reduces the cooldown timer of Psychic Scream by 4 seconds.

Improved Mind Blast

Rank: 4/5

Reduces the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by 2 seconds.

Mind Flay

Rank: 1/1

Assault the target's mind with Shadow energy causing 75 damage over 3 seconds and

slows the target to 50% of their movement speed.

Shadow Reach

Rank: 3/3

Increases the range of your Shadow damage spells by 20%.

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Silence

Rank: 1/1

Silences the target, preventing them from casting spells for 5 seconds.

Shadow Weaving

Rank: 5/5

Shadow damage spells have a 100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to

Shadow damage.

Vampiric Embrace

Rank: 1/1

Afflicts your target with Shadow energy that causes all party members to be healed for

20% of any Shadow damage you deal for 1 minute.

Darkness

Rank: 5/5

Increases your Shadow spell damage by 10%.

Shadowform

Rank: 1/1

Assume a Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 15% and reducing Physical

damage done to you by 15%. However you may only cast Shadow and Discipline spells

while in this form.

Discipline Tree

Wand Specialisation

Rank: 5/5

Increases the damage with Wandsby 25%.


Rank: 3/3

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Increases the damage abosrobed by your Power Word: Shield by 15%.


Rank: 2/2

Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude spell by 30%.

Unbreakable Will

Rank: 5/5

Increases your chance to resist Stun, Fear, and Silence effects by an additional 15%.

Martyrdom

Rank: 2/2

Gives you a 100% chance to gain the Focused Casting effect that lasts for 6 seconds after

being the victim of a melee or ranged critical strike. The Focused Casting effect prevents

you from losing casting time when taking damage and increases resistance to Interrupt

effects by 20%.

Inner Focus

Rank 1/1

When activated, reduces the Mana cost of your next spell by 100% and increases its

critical effect chance by 25% if it is capable of a critical effect.

This build is focused around leveling and kill speed, combined with mana efficiency and

versatility. All of the strong Shadow talents are here: Silence for casters, Shadowform for

damage, and enough depth in the Discipline tree to allow some versatility when it comes

to healing and soloing. Improved Mind Blast is 4/5 because it allowed advancement to tier

4 without taking Improved Fade (which is not worth it). It’s not maxed because I feel a 2

second reduction is satisfactory. This is a great talent build to use while you are leveling.

It has the essential damage and mana talents, as well as Improved Power Word: Sheild

for survivability.

As for talent order, Spirit Tap should be taken first, followed by improved wands. This

may seem crazy, but wands are an effective way to kill mana-free, and allow you to regen

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to full using Spirit Tap after a fight. The best strategy is to wand the last 40% or so. More

detail to follow in the strategy section.

5.2. Pure PvP Build

Shadow Tree

Blackout

Rank: 5/5

Gives your Shadow damage spells a 10% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds.

Improved Shadow Word Pain

Rank: 2/2

Increases the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by 6 seconds.

Shadow Focus

Rank: 5/5

Reduces your targets chance to resist your Shadow spells by 10%.


Rank: 2/2

Reduces the cooldown of Psychic Scream by 4 seconds.

Improved Mind Blast

Rank: 4/5

Reduces the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by 2 seconds.

Mind Flay

Rank: 1/1

Assault the target's mind with Shadow energy causing damage over 3 seconds and slows

the target to 50% of their movement speed.

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Shadow Reach

Rank: 3/3


Silence

Rank: 1/1


Shadow Weaving

Rank: 5/5

Shadow damage spells have a 100% chance to cause your target to be vulnerable to

Shadow damage.

Vampiric Embrace

Rank: 1/1


20% of any Shadow damage you deal for 1 minute.

Darkness

Rank: 5/5

Increases your Shadow spell damage by 10%.

Shadowform

Rank: 1/1

Assume a Shadowform, increasing your Shadow damage by 15% and reducing Physical

damage done to you by 15%. However you may only cast Shadow and Discipline spells

while in this form.

Discipline Tree

Unbreakable Will

Rank: 5/5

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Increases your chance to resist Stun, Fear and Silence effects by 15%.


Rank: 3/3

Increases the damage absorbed by your Power Word: Shield by 15%.


Rank: 2/2

Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude spell by 30%.

Martyrdom

Rank: 2/2




effects by 20%.

Inner Focus

Rank 1/1



Meditation

Rank 3/3

Allows 15% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.

Improved Mana Burn

Rank 2/2

Reduces the cast time of your Mana Burn spell by .05 sec.

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Holy

Healing Focus

Rank 2/2

Gives you a 70% chance to avoid interuption caused by damage while casting any healing

spell.

This is an end-game build designed around PvP. This is just a sample build – there are a

few options to consider when deciding on the final placement of your 51 talent points.

What this build has is Blackout over Spirit Tap. This is due to the strength of stuns in PvP

situations. Stuns can change the tide of battle. Blackout is a fairly reliable source, and

statistically if you cast 10 damage spells in a fight (which you should) then Blackout

should trigger. It is much more useful for dueling than Spirit Tap. Shadowform is taken,

with it’s 15% damage reduction proving useful against heavy damage dealers like

Rogues and Warriors. Vampiric Embrace, especially if you take the improvement talent,

is also an effective way to deal with these classes.

One of the main choices to be made here is between Shadow Focus and Improved Mind

Blast. Without taking Shadowform, one of the above talents should drop one point. For

the purposes of this build I chose to drop a point from Improved Mind Blast, over Shadow

Focus, due to the fact that I feel that Shadow Resistance potions and items will soon

become prevalent, and the reduced risk chance makes dueling well-equipped foes much

easier. The reduce cooldown of Mind Blast does little if it is being resisted often. I chose

to max Improved Mana Burn because it is the only way to duel another priest. Priest vs

priest battles will always result in mana standoffs, who can live burn the other’s mana first.

A priest specced in Discipline with Mental Strength and Improved Mana Burn will always

beat a priest without. With Improved Mana Burn, you will have an edge over others who

chose to spend an extra 2 points in the Shadow Tree.

5.3. Discipline Burst Damage Build

Discipline

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Unbreakable Will

Rank 5 / 5


Martyrdom

Rank 2/2




effects by 20%.


Rank 2 / 2

Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude and Prayer of Fortitude spells by 30%.


Rank 2 / 3


Meditation

Rank 3 / 3


Inner Focus

Rank 1 / 1



Mental Agility

Rank 5 / 5

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Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by 10%.

Mental Strength

Rank 5 / 5

Increases your maximum Mana by 10%.

Divine Spirit

Rank 1 / 1

Holy power infuses the target, increasing their Spirit by 17 for 30 minutes.

Force of Will

Rank 5 / 5

Increases your spell damage by 5% and the critical strike chance of your offensive spells

by 5%.

Power Infusion

Rank 1 / 1

Infuses the target with power, increasing their spell damage and healing by 20%. Lasts 15

seconds.

Holy

Holy Specialization

Rank 5 / 5

Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 5%.

Healing Focus

Rank 2 / 2

Gives you a 70% chance to avoid interruption caused by damage while casting any

healing spell.

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Improved Renew

Rank 2 / 3

Increases the amount healed by your Renew spell by 10%.

Divine Fury

Rank 5 / 5

Reduces the casting time of your Smite, Holy Fire, Heal and Greater Heal spells by 0.5

sec.

Holy Nova

Rank 1 / 1

Causes an explosion of holy light around the caster, causing 28-33 Holy damage to all

enemy targets within 10 yards and healing all party members within 10 yards for 52-61.

These effects cause no threat.

Searing Light

Rank 2 / 2

Increases the damage of your Smite and Holy Fire spells by 10%.

Holy Reach

Rank 2 / 2

Increases the range of your Smite and Holy Fire spells and the radius of your Prayer of

Healing and Holy Nova spells by 20%.

I called this build the Discipline Burst Damage build because that is what it is exceptional

at doing – provided you have the gear to back it up. It is an excellent PvP build for a

battle-healer play style. It is more versatile than the shadow heavy build because you can

heal at any time, and is more team oriented with the inclusion of Power Infusion, which

can be cast on your team’s mages and warlocks for some huge burst damage. It is also

helpful solo, especially when combined with items like the Zandalian Hero Charm for huge

crits. With this build, Smite and Holy Fire will be your spells of choice, with their reduced

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casting time and increased damage through talents. You will also have better than

average healing ability with this build, meaning it is a viable option if you are raiding end-

game and still need to be able to play solo. Additionally, this is my favoured build

because it is fun!

5.4. Healing Build

Discipline

Unbreakable Will

Rank 5 / 5


Silent Resolve

Rank 5 / 5

Reduces the threat generated by your spells by 20%.

Martyrdom

Rank 1 / 2




effects by 10%.

Meditation

Rank 3 / 3


Inner Focus

Rank 1 / 1



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Mental Agility

Rank 5 / 5

Reduces the mana cost of your instant cast spells by 10%.

Divine Spirit

Rank 1 / 1


Holy

Holy Specialization

Rank 1 / 5

Increases the critical effect chance of your Holy spells by 1%.

Healing Focus

Rank 2 / 2


healing spell.

Improved Renew

Rank 3 / 3


Divine Fury

Rank 5 / 5

Reduces the casting time of your Smite, Holy Fire, Heal and Greater Heal spells by 0.5

sec.

Holy Reach

Rank 2 / 2

Increases the range of your Smite and Holy Fire spells and the radius of your Prayer of

Healing and Holy Nova spells by 20%.

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Inspiration

Rank 3 / 3

Increases your target's armor by 25% for 15 seconds after getting a critical effect from

your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, or Prayer of Healing spell.

Improved Healing

Rank 3 / 3

Reduces the Mana cost of your Lesser Heal, Heal, and Greater Heal spells by 15%.

Holy Nova

Rank 1 / 1




Spiritual Guidance

Rank 5 / 5

Increases spell damage and healing by up to 25% of your total Spirit.

Spiritual Healing

Rank 5 / 5

Increases the amount healed by your healing spells by 10%.

This is, as the title says, a healing build. 30 points are taken to access Spiritual Healing,

which is a good boost to healing power. The healing is provided before gear, which makes

it slightly less attractive for players with extremely high level gear. If that is the case,

Mental Strength may be a better alternative, as it scales with gear. 21 is taken in

Discipline as opposed to 31 in Holy for Divine Spirit over Lightwell. Lightwell is a

lackluster spell, and when compared to Divine Spirit, the choice is obvious. The only

downside to this build is the lack of Improved Power Word: Fortitude, which means your

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party will miss out on some extra health. However, if you can get another priest to buff

your group that is easily overcome.

5.5. Tri-Build

Discipline

Unbreakable Will

Rank 5 / 5


Martyrdom

Rank 2/2




effects by 20%.


Rank 2 / 2

Increases the effect of your Power Word: Fortitude and Prayer of Fortitude spells by 30%.


Rank 3 / 3


Inner Focus

Rank 1 / 1



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Holy

Improved Renew

Rank 3 / 3


Healing Focus

Rank 2 / 2


healing spell.

Spell Warding

Rank 5 / 5

Reduces all spell damage taken by 10%.

Holy Nova

Rank 1 / 1




Blessed Recovery

Rank 3 / 3

After being struck by a melee or ranged critical hit, heal 25% of the damage taken over 6

seconds.

Shadow

Blackout

Rank 5 / 5

Gives your Shadow damage spells a 10% chance to stun the target for 3 seconds.

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Shadow Focus

Rank 3 / 5

Reduces your target's chance to resist your Shadow spells by 6%.

Improved Shadow Word: Pain

Rank 2 / 2

Increases the duration of your Shadow Word: Pain spell by 6 sec.

Improved Mind Blast

Rank 4 / 5

Reduces the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by 2 sec.

Mind Flay

Rank 1 / 1

Assault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing Shadow damage over 3 seconds

and slowing their movement speed by 50%.


Rank 2 / 2

Reduces the cooldown of your Psychic Scream spell by 4 sec.

Shadow Reach

Rank 3 / 3


Silence

Rank 1 / 1


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Vampiric Embrace

Rank 1 / 1


20% of any Shadow spell damage you deal for 1 minute.

Improved Vampiric Embrace

Rank 2 / 2

Increases the percentage healed by Vampiric Embrace by an additional 10%

I added this build as an alternative to the two-tier builds that most priests utilise. The

purpose of this build is maximising survivability – outlast your opponents and bring them

down with Shadow Word: Pain. Vampiric Embrace is an important part of this, which is

why Improved Vampiric Embrace is taken. Silence is also essential for survivability, and

the improved cooldown on Psychich Scream should help you live longer.

In the Discipline tree, all the talents which improve life or healing ability were taken. The

improvement to Power Word: Shield, while not huge, can make the difference between life

and death. Martyrdom is an excellent survival skill, and will help a lot against rogues and

warriors, two classes who have high crit rates and who often trouble priests.

In the Holy tree, Healing Focus is taken (of course) as it is simply one of the best bang-

for-buck talents available. Renew is an important element in surviving, so any talent that

improves it is worth it. Spell Warding will help against mages and warlocks, particularly

those with trinkets that boost damage, and may allow you to survive the initial onslaught.

Blessed Recovery, while not an excellent talent and still quite buggy, is nevertheless

taken, as it can help against high criting melee classes.

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6. Priest Strategies The priest is generally the designated healer in any group, and you will rarely be dealing

any damage. However, there are 3 aspects to World of Warcraft: solo play, group play,

and PvP. Priest can be very effective at all three, given the right talent builds.

6.1. Solo Strategies

1-20

These levels are the hardest for any priest. Your spells do poor damage, take loads of

mana, and are generally ineffective. Make sure you don’t venture out of your starting area

before about level 12. Grind on lower level mobs if you have to. You will have a much

easier time of it if you do.

The key in these levels is picking your fights. Don’t try and solo mobs more than 1 level

above you unless you only need 1 for a quest. It will just slow you down and cause you

significant problems if you get an add. If this is your first character, loot everything you find

and sell whatever you don’t use. You will need the money for spells. You should also

make sure you get your new spells as soon as they are available. Always carry a stack of

drinks with you as you will be drinking often.

You will want to train in wands, daggers and staves as soon as possible. This is going to

cost you 30s, so save up for that. There is always the chance that you will find new gear

to improve your damage, so it’s best to be able to use it when it becomes available.

20-40

At level 14, Spirit Tap should be maxed for every priest. This drastically reduces

downtime and makes life a lot easier for the soloing priest. At 20 you get the next

significant increase in soloing capability through Mind Flay (all of this is assuming that you

have spent the first 11 points in the shadow tree, which I encourage everyone to do

regardless of the end aim for their priest, be it solo, group or PvP). Mind Flay is the most

efficient spell in terms of damage/mana spent.

The key to using Mind Flay is to avoid interruption through damage. Because it is a

channeled spell, any damage will cause interruption to the casting, reducing the damage

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done. Mind Flay damages in three 1 second iterations, so if you are being interrupted you

will generally only get 1 damage iteration off. There are a few ways to accomplish avoid

these interruptions. The first and most obvious is the use of Power Word: Shield. This

absorbs all damage and prevents interruptions through damage (you can still be

interrupted through status effects such as stuns). The second way many priests use Mind

Flay is as an opener and a closer. Because of the slow effect, if you cast Mind Flay first

or second in your spell series, you will get off an entire channel before the mob hits you.

A good way to open a fight is with Mind Blast at maximum distance, and then Shadow

Word: Pain immediately after that. As they are running towards you, cast Mind Flay. You

should be able to get all three off before the mob reaches you, assuming you started at

maximum casting distance.

The third strategy is the use of Psychic Scream to prevent a mob attacking. There are 2

essential things to be aware of before pursuing this strategy: Undead are immune to fear,

and Psychic Scream can be broken by damage, including DoT spells such as Shadow

Word: Pain. This strategy is much more mana efficient than using shield, especially if you

use rank 1 Psychic Scream. It’s wise to have both the latest rank of Psychic Scream and

Rank1 both on your hotbar, as in one on one situations, it is better to conserve mana.

You should pull the mob using the same method as above. As soon as your Mind Flay

has finished channeling, cast Psychic Scream. This will send the mob fleeing in a random

direction. Cast Mind Flay on it as it runs – this will cause you to spin around and face the

mob regardless of its direction. If your Psychic Scream (also known as fear) lasts the

entire duration, you should be able to fire off 3 Mind Flays during this period. If the

monster reaches you and is not dead, cast Mind Blast to finish it off.

Another key to effective soloing as a shadow priest is the correct use of Spirit Tap. Spirit

Tap doubles your spirit after you kill a mob, and allows you to regenerate at 100% while

casting. The key to this is the second part – if you use a direct damage spell like Mind

Blast or Mind Flay to kill a mob, you are reducing the effectiveness of Spirit Tap. If you

get the timing down right, you can allow Shadow Word: Pain to finish off a mob, which

means you aren’t casting. This allows you to regenerate at 200% for the entire 15

seconds, rather than 5 seconds at 100% and 10 at 200%.

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For non-shadow Priests, things are tough here (they will get tougher though, don’t worry).

Anyone choosing a Holy or Disc build needs to have a good wand and a Dagger/Off-hand

combo. You will lose a few stats by not using a staff, but will gain a much needed way to

kill mobs without using Smite over and over again. The reason you need a dagger is

simple – they are fast.

Your wand should be at least .1 seconds slower than the speed of your dagger. This

allows the wand to recharge before the next swing of your dagger. Once you see your

dagger swing for the first time, hit your wand hotkey (it’s probably best to bind it to an easy

to reach number or key on your board). This will fire your wand. Then keep pressing the

wand button as it cools down so it will fire as soon as it is ready. If you get the timing

right, the wand and dagger should cooldown at virtually the same time, allowing both to

attack simultaneously. This should significantly increase your DPS, and save you a lot of

mana. The reason why this doesn’t work with a staff is because they are too slow. They

may have a higher listed damage, but it is too hard to combine the wand and staff swing

without one interrupting the other.

40-60

These levels are where things either get really easy and fun or really hard depending on

your spec. You should grind from about 36 onwards on humanoid mobs that drop cloth –

this will help you get your mount at level 40, a nice bonus that everyone strives for. The

easiest way to do this is with a heavy shadow spec.

At this stage, you should have invested 10 points into the Discipline tree if you are on a

PvP server. This well help when you are being ganked. This will happen a lot, but

thankfully, priests are the most immune to ganking of any class. As long as your fear is

not resisted you should be ok (this doesn’t work against Undead Rogues who have fear

immunity in the form of Will of the Forsaken). Just fear and run in the opposite direction.

Hide behind some trees if you have to. Night Elf priests are the most fortunate – they get

Shadowmeld. If someone is repeatedly ganking you, move on to a new location. Another

point to consider when grinding, particularly in areas heavily populated with the opposing

is to stick near a graveyard. This will make any trips after death significantly shorter.

It is during these levels that you gain access to the best talents any of the three trees have

to offer. At level 40, assuming you put all points into shadow, you will gain access to

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Shadowform, which increases shadow damage by 15% and reduces melee damage by

15%. This is the best soloing talent for any class in the game. Use it when soloing,

because you wont get much use out of it any where else.

You should mow down mobs with high speed and efficiency. Average kill time should be

between 20 and 30 seconds, and if you wait the entire duration of spirit tap, you should

only have to drink every 5 or so kills. Allowing time for drinking, that’s roughly 70 kills an

hour, which is very high. And these are conservative estimates. If you get the maximum

water available to you, and drink in readily rather than sparingly, things can go

significantly faster than that.

The fastest way to level is grinding, bar none. If you want to get to 60 in the fastest

possible time, quest to around level 35, and grind from there out. It just makes sense

mathematically. You may get 5000 experience from finishing a quest, but when you can

kill 10 mobs for the same experience, questing starts to look less attractive. You can kill

mobs much faster than you can complete most quests. The exception to this rule are

collection and kill x of x monster quests. These can be done while grinding. It’s a good

idea to collect a bunch of these when you enter a new area, and only hand them in when

you are ready to log.

The best mobs to grind a generally casters, because they have lower hitpoints and will die

faster. If you get healing mobs, be sure to use Silence before they cast their heal. Also,

some mobs have a Renew-type spell, so always dispel this.

For any non-shadow Priests, these levels just plain suck unless you are constantly

grouped. I suggest that you don’t try and grind unless you absolutely have to. You should

have no problems getting into instance groups in any case. You can stay in SM till the low

40’s at which point you should be able to get into Uldaman groups. After Uldaman, do

Zul’furrak, then Maraudon. Sunken Temple can take you up to about 55, at which point

you will get less experience. From there you can try and get into Blackrock Depths

groups. This is much easier if you have a good guild behind you that are willing to accept

a priest below level 60.

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6.2. Grinding Locations

Grinding (or repeatedly killing mobs over and over) is inarguably the fastest way to level in

World of Warcraft. Shadow priests are very good grinders because we can kill mobs

quickly, especially with Shadowform, and Spirit Tap helps limit downtime.

If you are going to grind, I’d suggest you take skinning and mining as your primary

professions. This allows you greater options on the mobs you should kill, because leather

can sell well, and many of the good grinding locations have mineral nodes close by.

Choose your mobs carefully when grinding. Casters are the best, especially if you have

Silence. They generally have less hit points and die a lot faster. If they have the ability to

heal, you can silence them.

Grinding generally isn’t worth it below level 20, you can quest effectively at this point. It’s

actually quite difficult for priests to grind until about 35, and is still not as effective as

questing. Level 35 is when many of the best talents start to kick in. At level 40, when

Shadowform becomes available, kill speed really takes off, and things get a lot easier.You

miss out on some good starting gear and basic game mechanic knowledge.

Levels 1-20

Stay in your starting area until at least level 10. If you go further, you will die. From level

10 on, move to the next starting zone for your race. For Alliance, it’s Loch Modan,

Westfall or Darkshore. For the Horde, it’s the Barrens and Silverpine Forest. Do your

quests. If you find you are running out of quests, or they are becoming too difficult, switch

zones. It’s easy to pick up a whole bunch of new quests in a different zone, and then

come back to complete those that you couldn’t do earlier.

Make sure you collect and keep everything that drops. It’s a good idea to buy or make (if

you are a tailor) 4 bags as soon as possible. It’s a lot easier to make some money for

your spells when you sell everything. Use linen and wool to skill up your first aid, and sell

what you can’t use, because it can really help late game to have runecloth bandages,

which are a free heal when you run out of mana (or when you need to conserve it).

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Don’t worry too much about gear at this stage – just wear what you find and what you can

get from quest rewards. Buying gear isn’t worth it, especially for a priest. Save your

money for your spells.

If you choose a gathering proffession, make sure you collect every node you can. It’s very

annoying entering a new zone with higher level nodes/herbs/skins and not being able to

harvest them because you don’t have the required level. It’s worthwhile to just level the

skill early, and sell to the vendor anything you can’t use or sell to other players.

Levels 20-30

You should still be questing at this point. At around level 20, you can do your first

instance. Deadmines for the Alliance, Ragefire Chasm slightly earlier for Horde, or

Wailing Caverns and Shadowfang Keep a bit later on. You can get some good items from

these that will take you well into your 30’s.

Now is a good time to upgrade your bags to 8 or 10 slotters, allowing you to collect more

loot and stay in battle longer. Gear should becoming more important at this stage, but

unless you have a lot of spare cash, it’s still not worth buying it.

For general questing, Duskwood, Redridge and the Wetlands are good for the Alliance.

There are plenty of quests between the three and you shouldn’t ever run out. The

Duskwood quests generally require a lot of back-and-forth running, so if you are looking to

level fast, I would advise against spending large amount of time questing here. It is a

good place to grind though, because there are packs of undead mobs, which are easy if

you get adds because of Shackle Undead.

Horde have Stonetalon and Thousand Needles. There are lots of quests here for Horde,

but also some for Alliance, so if you are on a PvP server, watch out. Generally though,

the Horde characters will outnumber the Alliance, so you shouldn’t have too many

hassles.

Levels 30-40

Stranglethorn Vale, south of Duskwood is the place to be for the majority of these levels.

There are a wide variety of mobs and levels to accommodate everyone.

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The quests in the hunter’s camp at Nessingwary’s Expedition are really good to get. You

can pick up a bunch of quests there and do them in succession. They are simple quests

which require you to kill x number of Raptors, Panthers and Tigers.

It’s also good to buy/collect the pages of the Green Hills of Strangelthorn book (the quest

is given in the Hunter’s camp also). It gives a ton of exp and is very easy to complete.

You can grind the trolls around Strangelthorn for pages – they also drop silver and cloth,

and are quite easy to kill. You should keep any pages that you don’t need, as you can

generally sell them to other players, which is a good way to supplement your income.

This is a contested area, and a heavily contested one at that. You will probably get

ganked a few times if you are on a PvP server, and there is no avoiding that. Generally

though, priests are pretty resistant to gankings, as we have Psychic Scream, Power Word:

Shield, and heals. You should immediately fear if a member of the opposite faction is

attacking you, and then Shield. If you know you can’t beat them, run, heal, and hide. If

you are going to die, you should make sure that you are killed by them rather than a mob,

as this will prevent durability loss to your items.

At around level 35 you will want to switch from questing to grinding. It serves two

purposes: you should be able to get your mount at 40, and you will get faster exp doing it.

There are a bunch of humanoid mobs around that drop cloth and coins, and also often

drop green items. The mobs in the Kurzen camp are easy to kill, although the medics

have a heal, so be prepared to silence when they get low. The Venture co Geologistsa

are the best mobs to grind in the game, just about. They drop silver, cloth, and lots of

grey items that sell well. They are level 36, and at around level 37 you should start

grinding these mobs, until you have enough cash for your mount.

In your late 30’s go to the Hilsbrad foothills and pick up a few quests for there. They are

easy, and there are two good grinding spots. The Murlocs below Southshore are good for

the Alliance, while the Naga nearby are good for both. Turtles also drop some grey items

that vendor well, and can be skinned. The ogres to the north are also easy to kill and drop

silver and cloth.

You shouldn’t be buying any gear at all in these levels. Having enough cash for a mount

should be a priority, as mounts make life a lot easier for a priest. We have no speed

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increase other than this. You may have to skip some skills in order to be able to afford it.

My suggestion, in this case, would be to pickup any damage skills that you can, and skip

the rest until you are able to afford them. You should also ask any mages in the area or in

you guild to conjure some water for you. This is the best way to save money.

Levels 40-50

Here is where grinding becomes easy. Shadowform adds significant damage and also

allows you to take more hits before your shield goes down. You should get it at 40.

As for grinding, Badlands is a good spot in the early levels. There are a few quests

scattered around, which are easy to combine with grinding. The quest givers arent in any

one place, but look around each of the pillars on the map. There is a quest giver at each,

for the most part. The Earth Elementals also drop plenty of items that can be vendored

for a fair amount. The dragons are also easy to kill and drop well. They have a small

chance of dropping a rare non-combat pet, which can be sold for a large amount on the

auction house of many servers. You can grind these and hope for a drop.

There are some Naga in Feralas which are plentiful and easy to kill. There are also a

bunch of easy quests for the area. Just pick them up at your faction’s town. After

Feralas, move to Tanaris. There are a bunch of quests here, and some easy mobs. The

Wastewander Bandits are easy and drop water, which can be handed in for a quest which

gives exp and a food/drink reward. Later on the Ogres are also good to grind.

Azshara is one of the best places to grind in the game, which is why it is where gold

farmers usually locate themselves. The ghosts drop lots of mageweave and silver, and

are easy to kill. However, you will be contesting with many people for spawns, and

sometimes it can be difficult to get kills.

The Searing Gorge has a bunch of different mobs to grind, including elementals, beasts,

and humanoids. The spiders drop different kinds of silk, some which are used in tailoring

and can be sold on the auction house, others which are grey and sell well. You can grind

them for money, and they are easy to kill. If you are grinding here, it’s a good idea to stay

off the main road, as this area leads to a number of level 60 instances, and you are likely

to be ganked if you make yourself to visible.

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Levels 50-60

You can grind Deadwood Village in Felwood from about 49-52. The mobs drop well, and

at the same time, you can raise your Timbermaw faction, which will stop the mobs agroing

when you run through the cave to Winterspring, and allows you to purhcase some

excellent tradeskill recipes. I would take this spot over any other if you are an Enchanter,

as it allows you to purchase the +15 agility weapon enchant at honoured. Other tradeskill

recipes are sold, so if you have picked any of the production trades, this is an essential

grinding spot. There are 2 locations for questgivers, the most coming from the far south in

the Emerald Sanctuary. There are also a few from the north, in the Felpaw Village. This

is probably the best spot for tailors to grind, as there is a vendor here who sells a pattern

which is only available after you achieve an honoured status with the timbermaw.

At level 50 head to Un’goro crater. There are tons of mobs, easy quests, and lots of herbs

and mineral nodes for collectors. The quest givers are mostly at the very top of the map,

in Marshall’s Refuge. There is also one quest giver south-east, who gives a number of

quests. The mobs range from 48-52, and there are some non-hostile mobs as well, so

you don’t have to worry about pulls.

After about 52, head to Western Plaguelands. You can spend the rest of your time to 60

in Western and Eastern Plaguelands, if you want to grind. The undead mobs are

generally easy to kill, and if you get any adds you cant just shackle them. The 4 farms in

Western Plaguelands each have different levels in mobs. You can stick to these until you

get to 58, at which point you should move to the Eastern side and the Browman Mill, just

north of Light’s Hope Chapel. The Argent Dawn quests can be done here, from Chillwind

Camp in the Western Plaguelands and Light’s Hope Chapel in the Eastern Plaguelands.

Not only do the mobs drop tons of Runecloth and silver, they also give Argent Dawn

reputation, which allows you to buy some good items from the Argent Dawn Vendors.

The reputation from non-elite kills stops at ½ way through friendly, but the mobs still drop

plenty of scourgestones you are easily able to gain rep. If you are going to try and get into

the Revered/Exalted reputation range, I’d suggest hodling onto the Argent Dawn tokens

until ½ way through Honoured, at which point all reputation from kills, including elites,

stops completely.

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This is another location where ganking is often prevalent, so it’s a good idea to be on your

guard. If you do get killed, say something on general chat. There should be some level

60’s roaming about looking for Honour Kills, so they can come and help you.

6.3. Group Strategies

In groups you will virtually always be the designated primary healer. You will have little

chance to do any significant damage other than wand blasts between heals. During the

easier early fights of an instance you may be able to cast Shadow Word: Pain on some

mobs.

Generally, you will spend the entire time healing. Being an effective and efficient healer

takes a bit of practice, but if you know the basics, it becomes a lot easier. I will divide this

section into 2 parts to deal with healing as you level, and healing at 60, because they can

be very different.

6.3.1. Healing as you Level

Most of your instance groups as you level to 60 will be what are known as pickup groups,

with people who advertise on the general or looking for group channel. These groups will

often be comprised of jerks, newbies and morons. They will also often have a less than

desirable class makeup. If you get in a bad group with one of the above, bail out as soon

as you can. You are better off trying to find a new group, and generally it’s pretty easy as

a priest.

During most of the game, Greater Heal can be used as your primary heal on tanks. The

monsters in the non end game instances generally don’t hit hard or fast enough to

facilitate the need to use Flash Heal. Renew is also a fantastic heal to use in these

situations on both your main tank or any other party members who take AoE damage

during a fight, or if the tank loses agro momentarily to another party member.

Using Greater Heal requires some timing and some trust from your tank. The advantage

in using Greater Heal over Flash Heal is mana efficiency. To use it effectively, it’s best to

wait till your tank is at about 60% of their maximum health. You can then start to cast

Greater Heal. By the time casting is finished, your tank should be at about 50%. The heal

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should then return him to full. Play around with the numbers a little, but that is a general

rule.

Prayer of Healing is another important spell for any priest. Priests are the best primary

healers for group play because of this spell. It costs a bucketload of mana, however, and

should not be used in every situation. If a mage or rogue gets agro and takes a small

amount of mana, and then the tank regains agro, you should not use Prayer of Healing.

When fighting a boss with big AoE damage attacks, like the Maraudon Princess for

example, Prayer of Healing should be used. The general breakpoint for Prayer of Healing

is 3 people to full health. If there are less than three people who are going to be fully

healed by the spell, it’s better to use Flash Heal. It’s also important to know that Prayer of

Healing creates a significant amount of threat because of the amount of health healed.

This is a good spell to use in combination with Inner Focus if you have that talent.

6.3.2. Healing at 60

In the end game instances, especially the raid encounters, strategies have to change.

Greater Heal is too slow to be an effective tank heal. You will need to spam Flash Heal

on the main tank to keep him alive when he is taking damage in the thousands per hit.

For example, Onyxia has a flame attack that deals between 3 and four thousand damage,

in addition to her standard attacks. That kind of damage coming at short intervals cannot

be effectively counter through Greater Heal.

During the long battles in raid instances Meditation becomes an extremely valuable talent

to have. When you are chain casting Flash Heal, you will have no time to stop and regen

some mana. While only 15%, Mediation will allow at least some mana to regen while you

are healing.

In any instance the most important person to keep alive is the main tank. If a mage or a

rogue takes agro off the tank, it will cost significant mana and cause high threat to the

priest to keep them alive. In some situations it can be better to let the other members die.

This does not mean don’t heal them – throw up a Power Word: Shield, and a Flash Heal,

but don’t keep casting Flash Heal over and over again. Explain to your members what

happens when you get threat (they all die) and try and get them to go a bit easier on the

DPS next time. It can help prevent a wipe. It’s much easier to res 1 person than to have

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everyone travel all the way back to the instance portal and then through the instance to

where you left off.

The key to many of the end-game encounters is effective strategy. You need to know

where to place your tank, what mobs to use crowd control on, and where to go. Don’t

worry, much of it you will pick up on your own.

6.3.3. Healing and Threat

Healing threat is what gets priests killed. If you have a tank that can’t hold agro

effectively, you will end up attracting the mobs to you, and dying. A priest can take few

hits before death.

Basically, healing threat is based on amount of hp healed. This means that a tank will

have to do some damage to a mob to generate hate before you can heal them. For this

reason, it is not a good idea to have a tank that is more than 2 levels below the highest

level mob in an instance, because they will just miss far too much.

Healing vs damage equates to around 50% with the subtlety talent. What this means is

that your tank will have to do around half as much damage as you heal to hold agro on a

target.

Overhealing does not add additional threat. What this means is that if your target is at

50/100 health, and you heal for 1000 health, you have only created 50hp worth of threat.

Your tank will have to do roughly 25 damage to maintain threat. (These are only example

figures, obviously). Certain abilities like Sunder Armour (for the Warrior) create large

amounts of threat. Try and get your tank to use these as often as possible.

Heal over time spells, like Renew (and First Aid if you choose to take it) create threat on

each tick of health, not initial or at the end of the duration. This is generally a better way

to heal, as it means a tank can create threat over a period of time.

Power Word: Shield, which is very mana inefficient but a great lifesaver, actually creates

less threat for the caster than healing for an equal amount. It’s roughly half as much

threat to use Power Word Shield than an equivalent hp heal on a tank. This becomes

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even more effective when not specced with Silent Resolve. Contrary to what some

people say, Power Word: Shield is applied after armour, so it’s good to use on high hp

classes, and it also does not affect Rage generation of warriors in any significant way.

This means that it is a good idea to apply a shield before a big fight to act as a buffer.

Fade is rather complicated in the way it works. It appears to reduce a set amount of agro

from the priest immediately. It should generally remove a mob from you from over-

healing, unless you have a very poor tank and have been doing significant heals to more

than one person. Threat from healing is still generated while fading. It doesn’t appear to

be reduced, either, which makes the usefulness of the Improved Fade talent questionable.

If Fade does not remove a mob, it means you are in big trouble. The tank will have a hard

time pulling the mob off, especially with your desperate efforts to stay alive. The best way

is to just cast Power Word: Shield on yourself and hope the tank can do his job.

As long as you don’t do anything right before Fade expires, you should not regain agro

afterwards. That includes Renew. The first tick of Renew after fading can bring that big

hitting mob straight back to you, so be careful how you use it, especially on your tank.

6.3.4. Instance List

Name Suggested Levels Location

Ragefire Chasm 13-15 Orgrimmar

Deadmines 18-22 Westfall

Wailing Caverns 16-21 Barrens

Shadowfang keep 19-24 Silverpine

Blackfathom Deeps 20-27 Ashenvale

The Stockades 23-28 Stormwind

Razorfen Kraul 25-31 Barrens

Gnomeregan 30-35 Dun Morogh

Scarlet Monastery 38-42 Trisfal Glades

Razorfen Downs 35-40 Barrens

Uldaman 42-47 Badlands

Zul’Farrak 45-50 Tanaris

Maraudon 48-52 Desolace

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The Sunken Temple 50-55 Swamp of Sorrows

Blacrock Depths 54-60 Blackrock Mountain*

Blackrock Spire 58,60† Blackrock Mountain*

Stratholme 60 Eastern Plaguelands

Schoomance 60 Western Plaguelands

Dire Maul 60 Feralas

Onyxia’s Lair 60 (Raid) Dustwallow Marsh

The Molten Core 60 (Raid Blackrock Mountain*

*Blackrock Mountain has two entrances, one in Searing Gorge, the other in Burning

Steppes.

†Upper Blackrock Spire generally requires a group of level 60s.

The suggested levels are generally for party members, not the actual priest. Usually a

priest can get away with being a few levels below the recommended level.

All of the instances can be done 5 man bar a few. Upper Blackrock Spire is generally

raided by groups of 15. Stratholme is 5-mannable, but you will see a lot of people doing

ten man runs for loot, generally to Baron Rivendare. Dire Maul is the only instance with a

5 man cap. The others are limited to 10.

Onyxia’s lair and the Molten Core are end-game raid instances. To access Onyxia, a

lengthy quest series needs to be completed which grants the Drakefire Amulet, the key to

her lair. Access to the Molten Core requires the clearing of Blackrock Depths the entering

the Molten Core and retrieving a quest item. After that, you can just jump through the

window next to the quest giver to access the instance.

The best instances to do are The Scarlet Monastery, Maruadon, and the Sunken Temple,

and of course the level 60 ones. Zul’Farrak can be extremely difficult in parts, and also

has many bugs associated with it. It’s generally pretty annoying, but the staircase section

is quite fun the first time. Uldaman is also long and at times annoying, but is worth doing

once, for your first taste of what it’s like to have to strategize against a boss. Maraudon is

un and rewarding, and you can run the Princess (the end boss) once you have completed

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a quest in pretty quick time. The Sunken Temple is a well built instance that has many

interesting encounters. It’s fun to do it a couple of times.

All of the end game instances are worthwhile for loot alone. You can get your Devout set

pieces there, and there are also some good quest rewards.

6.4. PvP Strategies

The strategies below assume a player at level 60 with all talent points assigned. You can

certainly PvP effectively below this level, but often will have higher level players kill you.

PvP as a priest is all about not letting the opponent hit you. While we have strong heals,

cloth armour makes us very fragile, especially against melee classes. You don’t want

someone to be attacking you without a shield and/or renew up. You need to use Flash

Heal if you start to lose health, because certain abilities can take away big chunks of

damage before you can heal them.

Against all classes Psychic Scream is your most powerful weapon. This skill is one of the

strongest PvP skills, and is the most often complained about skill for our class. If it

doesn’t break on damage, you have 8 free seconds to attack/heal/run. Use it as soon as

you can, so if the fight goes long, it will have cooled down before the end. 26 seconds is

all you need to survive for the cooldown to refresh.

The main bulk of your damage vs most classes will come from Shadow Word: Pain. Make

sure this is on at all times. It does great damage, is instant cast (so can be cast on the

run) and is mana efficient, especially considering the Mental Agility talent. Mind Blast

should be your nuke of choice. Cast it as often as the cooldown allows. Mind Flay can be

used in limited situations, for example when someone is fleeing due to being feared

(Psychic Scream) or when they are heading towards you. At other times, it’s not as

useful, as channeled spells are easily interrupted.

Silence is also a powerful spell against many classes. The key to beating many good

players is the prop timing of Silence. If you miss-time it, or use it to early, it is wasted. It’s

best to use towards the end of a long-casting spell, so the opponent wastes time casting

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and then has to wait a further 5 seconds to cast again. Each class requires a different

moment to cast Silence, more on that below.

Another important point about PvP is to ensure to keep some distance between yourself

and your opponent (this is mainly for melee classes. For casters and Hunters, strategies

are different). Start off the fight at the 35 yard range to cast Shadow Word: Pain and Mind

Blast. As they are charging towards you, use Mind Flay. Once they hit you, fear them,

and then use Mind Flay again. It’s then best to reposition yourself to be at maximum

distance again. You can often beat people without them ever touching you.

6.5. Class Strategies

6.5.1. Druid

Druid battles can be very difficult and drawn out. Because both classes have access to

strong heals, it’s often difficult to kill each other. The main tactic to use against druids is

Dispel and Mana Burn.

Two of the druid’s main heals have strong HoT components, which are easily dispelled by

a priest. Good druids won’t even bother to cast these, but if they do, dispel them early

before they can heal. You should also start out the battle to remove Mark of the Wild and

any other buffs they may have on them.

While they are in caster form, spam Mana Burn. It does low damage, but it burns a

significant amount of mana, and a druid without mana is a druid that can’t heal. When a

druid is getting low, they will generally shift to their dire bear form. Stop using Mana Burn

now, it has now effect. While in bear form, they have increased armour and hp, but most

of all have access to a significant heal in the form of Frenzied Regeneration. This heals

based on rage generation. If you see a druid gaining health while in bear form, don’t try

and dispel it, it doesn’t work. Instead, fear them and move as far away as possible. This

will prevent rage generation and hopefully limit their healing ability.

When they shift back into caster form, as they are getting low on health, cast silence. This

will prevent them from healing, and at this point, it’s usually fairly easy to finish them off.

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6.5.2. Hunter

Hunters can be difficult because of their stings, one of which drains a significant amount of

mana. Viper Sting at level 56 drains 1108 mana over 8 seconds, and is a poison, so it

can’t be dispelled by a priest.

You should always ignore a hunter’s pet. They don’t do as much damage as the hunter,

and there is not point killing them, as meanwhile the hunter will be killing you. Hunters a

strongest when they have the range advantage. As soon as possible, bridge that gap.

Fear the pet is an option if it is annoying you. That way you can focus entirely on the

hunter.

The trick to beating hunters is exploiting their minimum range. Hunter range attacks can

only be used at 8-35 yards, while their melee attacks have a 5 yard range. There’s a 3

yard difference between the two where a hunter cannot attack you. Learn where this is,

and use it to your advantage. When they are meleeing, run back. When they are

shooting, run towards them. After you fear and cast whatever spells you need (whether it

be a heal or a damage spell) run towards where they are, rather than away. This will

prevent them from applying the crippling Viper Sting on you.

Often hunters will try to flee from you by using Aspect of the Cheetah. I personally love it

when they do this. Make sure you have Shadow Word: Pain up on them, and follow.

They will be constantly dazed, and make a very easy target.

6.5.3. Mage

Mages are the king of ranged DPS and crowd control. Generally, Shadow priests have

the edge over mages, because of Silence and Fear, as well as heals. However, Frost

mages can be tough with their kiting, and if a fire mage gets a lucky crit, you can die very

quickly.

Mages will invariably open with Polymorph. This allows them some time to cast

Pyroblast, which should have 100% crit rate, as long as the talent Combustion is not on

cooldown. If they wait for your shield to expire, which it should, this will do up to 1470

damage instantly, with 1 or 2 DoT components. This is huge damage. As soon as you

are out of Polymorph (and possible stun, their fire spells should have a 10% chance to

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stun) cast silence. If you don’t they will kill you. If you try and heal first, they will Silence

you, and you will be dead. You now have 5 seconds where they can’t do anything. Make

sure you heal yourself to full and have your shield up and ready. This is where the battle

begins.

After you have healed and Shielded, run next to them. On the way, cast Shadow Word:

Pain. They will probably try and freeze you here. Don’t waste your Psychic Scream if you

are frozen. Instead, use this opportunity as they blink/run away to cast Mind Blast. Follow

them to where they are. Make sure you are always within range to cast Psychic Scream.

Once they have used Blink and Frost Nova, fear them, and then unload as much damage

as you can. Keep casting Mind Blast and healing as necessary, and always keep them

Pained.

If you can survive the initial onslaught and heal yourself to full, you should be able to beat

a mage the majority of the time.

6.5.4. Paladin

Paladin’s can be quite difficult fights for priests because of their heals and Divine Shield.

They can often last long enough to make you run out of mana, at which point they have

the advantage because they can do significant melee damage.

The key to beating Paladins is using Mana Burn and Silence/Fear at the correct moments.

Because they only have small mana pools, Mana Burn is an effective way to stop them

from healing. It will drain them fast. When you get a Paladin to around 30% life, Silence

them. This will prevent them healing (they can still cast Divine Shield, however). When

Silence wears off, Fear them to finish them off.

If you don’t burn their mana and prevent them from healing, they will just use Divine

Shield and heal themselves to full, wasting your mana. It’s said that paladins have 3 lives,

and this is definitely the case. The trick to beating them is not to let them use their lives at

all. You can’t outlast a paladin – your mana pool will run out before theirs – but your heals

can mitigate any melee damage they cause while you Burn away their ability to heal any

damage you are causing.

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6.5.5. Priest

Ah, the most hated fight of any priest. Priest vs priest fights aren’t about strategy, they are

about mana pools and talent allocations.

Believe it or not, a Holy/Disc priest will have the advantage against a Shadow priest in a 1

on 1 situation. They will generally have a larger mana pool, and their heals will be more

mana efficient. If they have Improved Mana Burn, they have a distinct advantage, even

considering Silence.

Priest vs priest battles are long, drawn out fights that only end when one person runs out

of mana and can no longer heal. Therefore, the strategy is to reduce your opponent to 0

mana before they do the same to you. The main thing to note about this is to not waste

mana. Don’t cast Renew. Don’t cast Shadow Word Pain. Don’t cast Power Word:

Shield. This is the only battle where this is the case. Why? They will always be

dispelled. Dispel is cheaper mana wise than any of those spells. If your opponent casts

any of those, Dispel them immediately. They have just wasted mana.

Your main spell should be Mana Burn in the early stages of battle. Once you deplete their

mana, you can use Silence and try using Fear, although it may be difficult to get the latter

off. A good priest won’t let you near. Blackout Proc is the best way to close the gap. Try

and keep ahead of them in mana at all times. If you take damage, heal, but don’t waste it.

If you are going to overheal, wait.

You should also use your wand and melee if you have some good equipment. This can

supplement your Mana Burn damage and help to make them heal before you have to. It’s

also great for interrupting their casting, especially if you have a fast dagger.

6.5.6. Rogue

Rogues are a priest’s worst nightmare. Generally rogues will only ever attack you and

you are already engaged with a mob. They will always have the initial advantage in this

case.

The worst type of rogue to fight is a stunlock rogue. With a succession of attacks, they

can keep you stunned until you are dead (this is assuming they get the jump on you. If

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you see a rogue before he attack you, you start out an advantage). In this case you need

to keep pressing fear. You may just get any opportunity to use it, giving you time to heal.

The second thing you have to worry about with rogues is Will of the Forsaken and other

fear immunity trinkets. Undead rogues will give you a very hard time, and will come out

on top the majority of the time. The only tactic here is to use fear as early as possible,

which will use up their Will of the Forsaken. You then have to survive for 26 seconds until

you can fear again. Chain cast Flash Heal and Shield yourself whenever you can. As

soon as you can, use fear again, at which point you should unload as much damage as

possible.

Always have Shadow Word: Pain on a rogue. This will prevent them from vanishing and

going back into stealth, allowing them to get off their best abilities. Don’t just stand still in

the one place, this will allow dagger rogues to sit behind you and use Backstab, and

prevent you from casting your damage spells. It’s better to jump around, just as they

would do to you.

If you get the jump on a rogue, it’s pretty much an easy battle. Rogues need to start from

stealth for a number of specials, and it helps them generate their initial combo points.

Without combo points, rogues are useless. Just keep them feared and away from you,

and they will be dead before they know what hit them.

6.5.7. Shaman

Shamans are the undisputed kings of PvP. With their shocks, they can own any melee

class by keeping them at range. Their Windfury attack allows them to chew threw cloth

wearing casters, and their heals and totems give them added versatility that not many

classes can match.

The key to beating a Shaman is precise use of Silence and the depletion of their mana.

This is another fight where Mana Burn should be your weapon of choice. If you allow a

shaman to have full mana, they will just heal when you are near to killing them.

Keep burning their mana away while at the same time healing yourself. The Frost Shock

effect can be dispelled if you need to get in close or add some range, and if they try to

shift into Ghost Wolf form, dispel them. This will remove it.

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A shaman will generally throw down a grounding totem. These absorb harmful spells like

fear, and need to be destroyed asap. They will also generally try and interrupt your first

heal with an Earth Shock. A good counter to this is to start casting your hearthstone. The

glowing green will trick some shamans and they will waste their Earth Shock, at which

point you can heal.

If they get low, make sure they can’t heal. Their heal only takes 1.5 seconds to cast, so

make sure you don’t miss your opportunity to Silence. Once you have them at this point,

Mind Blast and Mind Flay, and try and finish them off. If Silence wears off and they can

heal, you are in big trouble.

6.5.8. Warlock

Before you fight, make sure you have Shadow Protection up, as Warlocks have a number

of shadow Spells.

Like priests, Fear is the main weapon available to warlocks. However, they don’t really

have the capacity to outright kill a priest in the time their Fear lasts. They will do

significant damage to you, but once it’s over, you can heal yourself.

If they do crit with Shadowbolt and you are low on health after the first fear, it’s a good

idea to use Silence as soon as you can. This will allow you to heal and dispel Corruption

and Immolate, if they have used them. You should also use this time to run to where they

are and use Fear on them.

Whether you are able to defeat a warlock 1 on 1 will depend on which pet he has out and

how he is specced. If you can ambush him with any pet other than his Felhunter out, you

should have a good chance of causing some damage. Felhunters, especially on a Soul

Link Warlock, are a priest’s worst nightmare. They will have massive resists, be able to

remove your buffs (or debuffs such as Shadow Word: Pain), and have the ability to

Silence you with Spell Lock. Do not try to kill the Felhunter, as it has even higher resists

and most of your spells will fail. If you are a Smite build, then you should have an easier

time against Felhunter Warlocks, as they do not provide protection from Holy spells.

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If the warlock has a succubus out, it is likely he is a nuker, and you should be careful

because he will chain mez you and blast you before you have a chance to react. If you

can fear before he Seduces, then you have won the battle, because his hitpoints will be

vastly lower than his Soul Link counterpart, and his survivability will be impaired because

of his gear choices.

A voidwalker means sacrifice, which is a damage shield similar to Power Word: Shield.

Often a Warlock with a Voidwalker out will be able to summon another through talents

almost instantly, so you have to be wary that they have another shield.

If a warlock has an imp out, you should laugh and kill him quickly. Although an Imp that is

boosted by Black Book can output a fair bit of damage, you should be able to survive

through it and kill the Warlock with mana to spare.

Focus all your damage on the Warlock, always have him DoTed, and use Mind Blast

whenever you can. Warlocks generally have high HP, so they can take a while to bring

down, but as long as you keep your self Shielded and use Flash Heal when you need to

you should come out on top.

The warlock’s Felhunter pet is designed to take out casters, and as such is a very difficult

battle for a priest to fight. The strategy remains the same though – try and bring them

down before your mana runs out. Try and time you fears to hit both the pet and the

warlock.

6.5.9. Warrior

A good warrior can be tough to beat. We have no real way of reducing their damage

output, because we can’t improve our armour. They also have some damaging abilities

that can reduce our healing and do significant damage if we go below 20%. Make sure

you always stay above this point, or you are toast. Don’t wait to heal against warriors. It

doesn’t help.

You have to try and keep them away from you as much as possible. Fear is important

here, as is jumping around during the battle. If you can jump through your opponent, it

may cancel a swing and disorient them.

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Don’t bother trying to get distance at the start of the fight, they will just charge you. There

is also little point in trying this in the middle of the fight, as the ability Intercept allows them

to immediately close the distance and stun for 3 seconds. This is only usable from 8-35

range, so stay below 8 yards away and they can’t use it.

Shield Bash will be your biggest problem here. It interrupts casting and prevents any spell

in that field from being cast for 6 seconds. It’s very difficult to get a heal off when this

ability is being used often. If you see them at low rage, it’s a good time to heal.

Keep Pain up at all times, Mind Blast when you can, and don’t get below 20%. The key

here is surviving long enough to allow your Pain to wear them down. Shield, Renew and

Flash Heal are you best bets in this battle.

6.6. Honour Kills and Contribution Points

As of the recently released patch, successful kills of opposition players will yield honour,

which in turn gains you ranks and allows access to new items. This system, while

accessible to all, mainly benefits level 60 characters, and as such, this section is designed

with those who have achieved maximum level in mind.

Honour kills are gained through killing anyone that would normally yield experience (if they

were a mob). At level 60 this is any character above level 48. Anything below this level

does not yield an honour kill.

Contribution points are how you gain ranks and access the items these ranks afford.

Contribution points are based on damage dealt. The more % damage you do to a target,

the more points you get. The best way to do this is solo, of course, because you will get

the full amount of Contribution points (which is 166 points for the lowest rank level 60

character. The higher level a person is up the PvP ranking system, the more points they

will give.) Shadow priests make excellent solo PvPers.

To effectively solo, choose an area where there are a number of opposition characters,

but none to close together that may join a 1v1 battle. Grinding locations for 50+

characters are good, such as the Plaguelands or Azshara (for the gold farmers). Another

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tactic in contested zones without towns (Eastern Plaguelands, for example), is to camp

near the Gryphon/Windrider master and kill opposing players as the exit the flight. A little

cheap, but definitely effective.

Another tactic if you don’t like the threat of solo killing is to head to Hilsbrad Foothills.

There are constant back and forth battles between Horde and Alliance there, and it’s quite

easy to rack up a large number of kills. However, in these situations the contributions

from your kills tend to be lower. Instead of using Shadow Word: Pain in these situations,

it’s better to stick to Mind Blast and Smite, because they do direct damage and can’t be

dispelled. Starshards, for Night Elft Priests is actually quite useful in this situation,

because it has a 30yd range (longer than Mind Flay) and the channeling can continue on

targets who go out of range.

The Hillsbrad battles are generally good because if you play carefully you won’t die, and

you can get a large number of HK’s. The contribution points aren’t as good, but if you can

manage to pick off some stragglers solo, its quite respectable.

However, if you are on a server with a population imbalance that favours the opposition,

it’s probably better off staying away from Hillsbrad, as you will get swamped, and find it

difficult to get kills.

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7. Making Gold There are 2 ways to make gold in World of Warcraft, and two main items that most people

generally spend their gold on. The first way is to farm for it, through the repeated killing of

mobs that drop money, and generally cloth or items that sell well to vendors. The second

way is to play the auction house.

Farming is the best way to get cash for your mount at level 40. You should start doing this

at around level 35. If you grind from 35 to 40, you should have enough gold to get your

mount straight away.

The key to farming for gold at these levels, and indeed any level, is to maximise kill speed

and efficiency. You should kill mobs 2 levels below you, which should leave you with

minimal down time (assuming you are shadow specced, of course). To minimise costs

you should ask any mages in the area to conjure some water for you. Drinks are

expensive, and this is a good way to keep costs down. Most are usually very helpful, and

if you ask nicely, will give you a stack or two.

Make sure you have plenty of bag space. Put any items you don’t need in your bank

before you go out grinding. The less trips to town you have to make, the better. You

should also try and get some runecloth bags at some stage. These are generally quite

cheap (rough 2-2.5 gold each), and are 14 slotters. It’s not worth getting the 16 slot

Mooncloth bags or Travellers Backpack’s as they cost around 20g each, for only 8 slots

more in total.

Any good green gear is worth keeping to sell at the Auction House. A rough guide for

armour is: Cloth – anything with +Int and +Stamina or +Spirit; Leather - +Agility, +Stamina;

Mail – Virtually all stats for Horde, for Alliance, +Agility +Stamina, +Strength (below 40);

Plate - +Strength, +Stamina. Any green weapons with high DPS are generally good to

sell at the Auction House.

Blue items should always be sold on the Auction House (or by advertising in the trade

channels). When you first find an item, search the Auction House for others, and base

your price roughly on that. You may want to do a few comparisons to make sure you get

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the best out of the item. Also, don’t list it if there rae a number on there. Save it for when

there are none, and then list it. The above strategy is the same for Epic quality items.

Once you have a good money base built up, you can start to play the Auction House for

profit. This involves a simple strategy of any finance institution – buy low and sell high.

Each day, do a search for Rare items, and go through the list, looking for anything which

is underpriced. Buyout the item, and then re-list it immediately at the standard price.

For example, take the Devout set Bracer piece. This is a fairly rare Bind on Equip drop,

that only comes from a small number of mobs in a rarely entered instance (Stratholme

Scarlet side). The general price can range between 200 and 250g. If you see this item

for a buyout of less than 200g, for example, buy it and list it with a start price of 200g and

a buyout of 250. This is the best way to make cash, if you can find some good bargains.

Another riskier way to play the Auction House is to artificially increase prices. This only

works if you have a lot of time and a large cash base. Basically, you need to buy out all

the items of 1 type, then relist them all at a higher price. Buyout one of a highly used

crafting item, for example, then list it ar aroun 1.5x the normal price. People who need it

straight away will buy it, and you have made some easy cash. This strategy can make

you a lot of money, but has a high element of risk associated with it in regards to unsold

goods, and can turn other players on your server against you. I’d suggest doing it on an

alt if you are going to do it at all, and to proceed with caution.

Professions are also a great way to make money. Stick to the gathering professions

rather than production ones. Unless you can get a Rare or Epic pattern that few people

on the server have, you won’t make any money out of producing items. Each profession

generally has one item that sells well: Herbalism has a number of different ones, but

mainly Ghost Mushroom; Mining has Arcane Crystals; Skinning has Core Leather. You

can also make some money with a few production proffessions, such as Alchemy’s

transmutes, or creating and selling Mooncloth for tailors. These are on a timer, however,

and it is harder to make money this way.

If you are going to buy your epic mount, it’s a good idea to get to at least the rank of

Sergeant through the PvP rewards system. This will give you a further 10% discount on

fanction purchases (combined with the 10% for getting to honoured, this means 20%

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total), which will reduce the cost from 1000g down to 800g, a huge saving for a relatively

easy investment. You can try and do this to save you 10g at level 40, but it is difficult for

lower levels to gain ranks, and it’s probably not worth the effort. You are better of just

grinding the 10g.

7.1. Locations for Grinding

Grinding for cash can be a great way to make money, but only really after around level 35

(or until silk cloth can consistantly drop from the humanoid mobs you kill. On established

servers, you can make reliable cash out of wool cloth, because it doesn’t drop from a wide

range of mobs, and can often be in high demand from high level characters building up

their tailoring or first aid skills, so you should sell all that you find at the Auction House.

Before the mid 30’s, you make more money out of general questing than you can through

grinding, because the mobs won’t drop consistant amounts of money, and the green items

they drop don’t generally sell well.

If you really need to make cash pre-35, pick the quests that offer cash rewards, and do

them over others. You can see the reward you will recieve in the quest log. Quests

ataround level 20 can give 10 silver, which is quite a good amount for that level, and not

really achievable through cash collection.

Another important tip regarding cloth, is that if you don’t intend to sell it at the Auction

House, you should convert it (either by making bandages or bolts of cloth, if you are a

tailor). These sell better than their components, and Silk bandages are easy to get up to.

Sell any quest reward items you get that you can’t use. If you are an enchanter, you can

disenchant them and sell the shards at the Auction House (or use them, of course).

From level 36, you should be grinding the Venture Co. Meteorlogists in the Stranglethorn

Vale. They drop lots of gold and die quickly. These mobs can single-handedly pay for

your level 40 mount. Grind these guys until you have enough cash to pay for it, then

move on.

The next spot for cash grinding is throughout the Badlands. There are a ton of rock

elementals here that drop all sorts of grey and white items that vendor well. You can

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make tons of cash of these guys, and they are mostly easy to kill. Elementals are good to

grind because they always drop something, they are never in packs, and don’t call for

backup. They also don’t flee, so they can’t bring adds unless you make a mistake with

fear. They generally make for safe kills.

From about 45, head to Tanaris, and kill the wastewander bandits, followed by the pirates.

Later on there are also ogres to kill. These 3 groups drop silver and cloth, and many

chests can be found in the area. This should take you into the 50’s.

My favourite grinding area for cash and experience is the Eastern and Western

Plaguelands. The mobs there are undead, so if things go pear-shaped, you can shackle

and flee. They also drop silver and cloth. The best part is they increase your faction with

Argent Dawn through kills and the scourgestones they drop. This allows you access to

some items that they sell, including good food and shoulder enchants.

7.2. Auction House Items

The best items to look for in the Auction House on an established server are the high-end

ones that benefit PvP combat. This includes green items of level 54+. You should look

out for any green gear with + Stamina and + another stat, which changes with armour

class.

Cloth: +Intellect

Leather: +Agility

Mail: +Agility

Plate: +Strength

An item that normal sells for about 2.5-4g base Auction House price (the price the game

reccomends you set) can be sold for 3-4x that amount, because of the demand for gear

with Stamina and another stat. You should list these items at 5g for leve 54-56, 7.5 for

56-57 and for 58+ items list them for 10g. Make the buyouts 1.5x or double the list price.

These items generally sell quickly. If you see them listed at any less than 5g, buy them

and list higher.

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Blue items to look out for change from server to server, but generally, any weapon with

high DpS is going to sell well, especially the 50+ items. Devout Bracers are ridiculously

overpriced on my server, and if you see them for cheap, buy them and re-list. Most of the

other end-game set items generally remain at a pretty static price, which falls quickly.

Pristine Black Diamonds also sell very well, and you may get lucky and get one listed

cheaply, which you should buy and re-list. They can sell for over 200g now, because they

are needed for Paladins to get their epic mounts.

It’s a learning proccess to see what items sell well, and can vary greatly on different

servers. Always keep an eye on the Auction House, and you can easily make plenty of

cash.

7.3. Disenchanting for Profit

Disenchanting is an excellent money maker, even if you are not an Enchanter by trade. It

is not essential to take Enchanting on your main character for this to work – you can make

an alt and get him to level 5, at which point he will be able to disenchant. Then all you

need to do is sit him in town near a mailbox and get started.

As you level, you will find many green items that might not sell well at the auction house

(for example bad stat combinations, like spirit and agility). Send all these to your

disenchanter to turn into dusts and essences (and possibly shards).

The best thing about this method is that enchanting materials cost nothing to list on the

Auction House, whereas the green item it came from does. If the enchanting material

doesn’t sell, you do not lose any money.

If you are going to quest your way to 60, I would suggest taking Enchanting as a tradeskill

simply to disenchant all the bind on pickup quest rewards you will be receiving. You can

still mail the dusts to an alt for storage and sale purposes.

A more advanced and possibly risky tactic is to buy items off the Auction House, and then

disenchant them for the dust to re list. It is essential to know what an item is going to

disenchant into before you purchase it, and the comparitive market price of the dust that

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will most likely come from it. For example, 41-50 items disenchant into Dream Dust, while

51-60 greens disenchant into Illusion dust most of the time. Additionally, weapons will

mostly disenchant into essences, which generally sell for more, while armour will usually

disenchant into dust. Occasionally you will get a shard, which sell for even more again,

depending on the market.

An essential point to not when pursuing this tactic is not to flood the market. This will

drive prices down and cut into your profit margin. If someone is listing dusts much

cheaper than yours, buy them out and re-list at your price. This will force people to pay

what you want for the items, and can be a very effective strategy with limits. The best

part about doing this with dusts and essences is that they have no list price, so they are

relatively risk free.

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8. Professions There are 9 primary and 3 secondary professions available in World of Warcraft. You can

only have 2 primary professions at any time, but you cant pick up all 3 secondary

professions if you wish.

8.1. Primary Professions

Alchemy

Alchemists create potions using herbs found around the world. The potions available

include healing and mana potions, which instantly restore a set amount of life. There are

also a number of powerful buff potions which can add life, stats, and armour, to name a

few. Alchemists can also transmute a number of substances, which can yield good

income.

The best potions to make are of course the health and mana ones. There are some good

buff potions that require a ton of reagents and cannot be dispelled. These are called

flasks. The best of these is the Flask of Distilled Wisdom, which increases mana by 2000

for 2 hours. Great for raids, but if you die, you have just wasted 30 Dreamfoil, 10 Icecap,

1 Black Lotus and the gold to by the Crystal Vial.

Blacksmithing

Blacksmiths create mail and plate items out of minerals mined from nodes. The items are

restricted in use, and generally only warriors, and paladins pursue this path. There are a

number of different sub-branches to pursue, including armoursmith and weaponsmith.

Enchanting

Enchanters add stats to items to improve them. There are a large number of enchants

available, some of them very powerful. Enchanting can be a very hard profession – it

requires shards which are acquired from disenchanting items, which destroys them. This

makes it expensive to level and expensive to apply.

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Engineering

Engineers make bombs, trinkets and other gadgets which enhance their ability in combat.

Bombs do AoE damage, and some have stun/ disorient components. Some of their

trinkets include the Discombobulator, which transforms an opponent into a leper gnome (a

spell similar to polymorph), and the Gnomish Shrink Ray, which reduces size and attack

power for a period.

The discombobulator is especially good in PvP combat, because it is the only way to

dismount a fleeing opponent. The Mage’s Polymorph spell is the only other way to

dismount someone.

Also good are the Rocket Boots which increase run speed, and the deepdive helmet,

which allows underwater breathing.

Herbalism

Herbalists gather herbs, which are then used to make potions for alchemists. This is a

good way to make money, and also a good skill when combined with alchemy.

Leatherworking

Leatherworking is a profession based around the creation of leather items from the skins

of beasts in the world. It’s a profession primarily for leather and mail wearers, and not

really suitable for a priest.

Mining

Mineral nodes are scattered throughout the world, and miners harvest these for metals

and gems. Mining goes well with blacksmithing and engineering, but can also be used as

a money-making profession, by selling what you find on the auction house.

Skinning

Skinners harvest the skins of beast-class animals found throughout the world. These

skins are then used to make leather items by a leatherworker.

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Tailoring

Tailors create cloth-class items from the cloth that drops off humanoid mobs throughout

the world. This is a profession generally for caster characters. At level 300 skill, if you are

lucky enough, you can pick up some excellent epic patterns off high-end bosses that not

only are great items, they are great money makers also.

8.2. Secondary Professions

Cooking

Cooking is used to create food from ingredients dropped by animals around the world.

Food can heal health (and sometimes mana), and often gives buffs to stamina, strength

and spirit.

First Aid

First Aid is used to create bandages from cloth found on humanoid mobs. Bandages heal

damage over time, and can be used to supplement healing when you run out of mana.

Fishing

Fishing allows you to catch fish in most of the bodies of water around the world. Fishing

has recently been nerfed to near uselessness – though it can be a fun way to pass time

while waiting for a boat/ a group member to catch up.

8.3. Suggested Professions

• Herbalism/ Alchemy

o A good combination for a priest for the buffs and instant healing that

potions provide.

o Can make limited amounts of money through the re-selling of potions and

the transmuting service.

o Because of the wide variety of herbs, can sometimes be frustrating when

you need a specific herb for a potion which you don’t have.

• Tailoring/ Enchanting

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o Tailored items can be great for a leveling priest, as they are easy to create

and often have quite good bonuses.

o Green and Blue tailored items can be disenchanted for use in enchanting.

o End game items are generally better when found rather than crafted.

o Enchanting can be difficult and money-consuming to level and maintain.

• Mining/ Engineering

o Engineering is a fun profession with many interesting combat bonuses.

o Great for PvP priests for some added damage and different combat tactics.

o Some of the items can backfire, and many of them aren’t as effective as the

description indicates.

• Skinning/ Mining or Herbalism

o The combination of two gathering professions can generate significant

income.

o No need to buy ingredients for profession items saves money.

All three of the combinations are quite successful and add to the priest. There are some

fantastic epic crafted items that tailors can make, but on the downside the ingredients

generally cost a lot of money. Enchanting is a huge money sink, but if you can get it high

enough, you can make a steady profit from it.

Potions are always nice to have, and excess herbs can always be sold. Engineering is

probably the most “fun” and versatile of the professions, and is very useful in PvP

situations.

However, I feel that the best combination of professions, especially for the beginning

priest, is choosing 2 gathering professions. This way you should definitely have your

mount at level 40 without having to scrounge money, and you will also be able to buy

some needed items along the way.

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9. Gear Gear is very important in WoW. The main stats to look for on any piece of equipment are

Intellect, Stamina and Spirit. Intellect should generally be your number 1 priority on gear.

Try and get as big a mana pool as possible It will allow you to heal longer, and deal out

more damage in solo play.

Spirit and Stamina should be your second priorities. 3 points of Spirit is roughly equal to 1

mana regen a tick (every 2 seconds). There is no hard or soft cap on Spirit. It’s good to

have high Spirit in certain situations (it helps with downtime when leveling, especially

combined with Spirit Tap. It’s also good for long end-game raids), but generally, Spirit

isn’t the best stat. Stamina is better, because with more hitpoints, you will survive longer.

Also good to look out for with the new patch are items that add to healing and damage.

They are much improved, and now often come with other stats on the items. They can

now compete with stat gear for spots.

The following is a list of gear to look out for, the level reqs, and the stats.

Ragefire Chasm

Crystalline Cuffs, Level 13, 14 Armour, +2 Spirit, +1 Intellect (Taragaman the Hungerer)

Robe of Evocation, Level 13, 32 Armour, +4 Intellect, +3 Stamina (Jergosh the Invoker)

Deadmines

Lavishly Jeweled Ring, Level 17, +6 Intellect, +2 Agility (Gilnid)

Emberstone Staff, Level 18, 19.7 dps, +8 Intellect, +5 Spirit, +5 Stamina (Captain

Greenskin)

Corsair's Overshirt, Level 19, 42 Armour, +11 Spirit, +5 Stamina (Edwin VanCleef)

Staff of Westfall, 20.5 dps, +5 Intellect, +11 Spirit (quest reward)

Wailing Caverns

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Living Root, Level 20, 21.2 dps, +12 Spirit, +2 Stamina, +5 Nature Resistance (Verdan the

Deep Everliving)

Fathom Ring, Level 21, +6 Spirit, +3 Stamina, +3 Intellect (Mutanus the Devourer)

Sizzle Fang (wand), 17.6 dps (quest reward)

Crescent Staff, 20.3 dps, +7 Intellect, +7 Stamina, +7 Spirit (quest reward)

Shadowfang Keep

Odo's Ley Staff, Level 21, 21.7 dps, +12 Spirit, +5 Stamina (Odo the Blindwatcher)

Feline Mantle, Level 23, 34 Armour, +10 Intellect, +3 Spirit, +2 Agility (Wolf Master

Nandos)

Belt of Arugal, Level 24, 26 Armour, +10 Intellect, +3 Spirit, +2 Agility (Archamge Arugal)

Robes of Arugal, Level 24, 46 Armour, +10 Spirit, +9 Intellect, +5 Stamina, +3 Agility

(Archmage Arugal)

Ghostly Mantle, 34 Armour, +5 Intellect, +5 Spirit (quest reward)

Blackfathom Deeps

Leech Pants, Level 26, 42 Armour, +15 Spirit, +5 Intellect, +1 Stamina (Aku'mai)

Glowing Thresher Cape, Level 24, 23 Armour, +8 Spirit, +3 Strength (Old Serra'kis)

Rod of the Sleepwalker, Level 24, 23.9 dps, +11 Intellect, +10 Spirit (Twilight Lord Kelris)

Gravestone Scepter (wand), 29 dps, +1 Spirit, +5 Shadow Resistance

Gnomeregan

Electrocutioner Lagnut, Level 29, +9 Spirit, +4 Stamina (Electrocutioner 6000)

Civinad Robes, 54 Armour, +7 Stamina, +18 Spirit

Razorfen Kraul

Swinetusk Shank, Level 30, 23.0 dps, +6 Stamina, +4 Spirit (Agathelos the Raging)

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Stygian Bone Amulet, Level 23, +8 Spirit, +4 Stamina (Blind Hunter)

Batwing Mantle, Level 27, 37 Armour, +10 Intellect, +5 Spirit, +3 Agility (Blind Hunter)

Agamaggan's Clutch, Level 31, +9 Spirit, +5 Stamina (Charlga Razorflank)

Wind Spirit Staff, Level 27, 26.7 dps, +15 Spirit, +5 Intellect, +3 Stamina (Earthcaller

Halmgar)

The Scarlet Monastery

Blighted Leggings, Level 30, 45 Armour, +17 Spirit, up to +7 Shadow damage (Azshir the

Sleepless)

Ghostshard Talisman, Level 30, +9 Stamina, +4 Spirit (Azshir the Sleepless)

Necrotic Wand, Level 30, 33.2 dps (Azshir the Sleepless)

Embalmed Shroud, Level 30, 42 Armour, +12 Spirit, +11 Intellect, +7 Stamina (Fallen

Champion)

Hypnotic Blade, Level 34, 26.8 dps, +8 Intellect, +3 Spirit (Arcanist Doan)

Illusionary Rod, Level 34, 34.7 dps, +15 Intellect, +10 Spirit, +7 Stamina (Arcanist Doan)

Hand of Righteousness, Level 39, 29.8 dps, +8 Spirit, up to +14 healing (High Inquisitor

Whitemane)

Triune Amulet, Level 39, +7 Intellect, +7 Spirit, +7 Stamina (High Inquisitor Whitemane)

Whitemane's Chapeau, Level 39, 52 Armour, +14 Intellect, +14 Spirit, +9 Stamina (High

Inquisitor Whitemane)

Orb of Lorica (off hand) +6 Intellect, +11 Spirit (quest reward)

Prophetic Cane (offhand) +5 Stamina, +12 Intellect (quest reward)

Razorfen Downs

Silky Spider Cape, Level 35, 30 Armour, +11 Stamina, +5 Spirit (Tuten'kash)

Deathmage Sash, Level 36, 33 Armour, +15 Intellect, +6 Stamina (Mordresh Fire Eye)

Glowing Eye for Ordresh, Level 36, +11 Spirit, +5 Intellect (Mordresh Fire Eye)

Robes of the Lich, Level 39, 64 Armour, +10 Intellect, +20 Stamina (Amnennar the

Coldbringer)

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Uldaman

Stoneweaver Leggings, Level 35, 51 Armour, +15 Spirit, +9 Stamina, +8 Intellect (Ironaya)

Grimlok's Tribal Vestments, Level 42, 68 Armour, +20 Spirit, +10 Stamina, +5 Intellect

(Grimlock)

Zul'Farrak

Lifeblood Amulet, Level 43, +13 Stamina, +5 Spirit (Antu'sul)

Bad Mojo Mask, Level 44, 57 Armour, +24 Intellect, up to +10 Shadow damage

(Shadowpriest Sezz'ziz)

Maraudon

Satyrmane Sash, Level 45, 40 Armour, +15 Intellect, +10 Stamina, +10 Shadow

Resistance (Lord Vyletongue)

Noxious Shooter, Level 46, 50.0 dps, +7 Stamina, +5 Nature Resistance (Noxxion)

Heart of Noxxion, Level 46, +10 Nature Resistance, use: removes one poison effect

(Noxxion)

Vinerot Sandals, Level 46, 50 Armour, +12 Intellect, +12 Spirit, +12 Nature Resistance

(Razorlash)

Grovekeeper's Drape, Level 47, 37 Armour, +12 Stamina, +10 Nature Resistance

(Celebras the Cursed)

Cloud Stone, Level 48, +10 Intellect, +10 Spirit, +10 Arcane Resistance (Landslide)

Rotgrip Mantle, Level 48, 57 Armour, +17 Intellect, +11 Spirit (Rotgrip)

Charstone Dirk, Level 49, 35.9 dps, +11 Intellect, +2 mana every 5 sec. (Princess

Theradras)

Eye of Theradras, Level 49, 63 Armour, +20 Intellect, +13 Stamina, +11 Spirit (Princess

Theradras)

Gemshard Heart, Level 49, +10 Intellect, +10 Stamina, +6 Spirit (Princess Theradras)

Resurgence Rod, 45.8 Dps, Equip: Restores 8 mana every 5 seconds, Equip: Restores 2

health every 5 seconds (quest reward)

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The Sunken Temple

Featherskin Cape, Level 49, 39 Armour, +15 Spirit, +4 Intellect, +4 Stamina (Avatar of

Hakkar)

Spire of Hakkar, Level 49, 46.5 dps, +16 Spirit, +16 Stamina, up to +10 on magical

damage and healing (Avater of Hakkar)

Gloves of the Atal'ai Prophet, Level 50, 49 Armour, +20 Spirit, +6 Stamina, +5 Strength

(Jammal'an the Prophet)

Kilt of the Atal'ai Prophet, Level 50, 69 Armour, +18 Spirit, +18 Intellect, +9 Stamina, +4

Strength (Jammal'an the Prophet)

Vestments of the Atal'ai Prophet, Level 50, 78 Armour, +27 Spirit, +11 Intellect

(Jammal'an the Prophet)

Dragon's Eye, Level 51, +15 Spirit, +6 Stamina (Shade of Eranikus)

Rod of Corrosion, Level 51, 55.0 dps, +10 Nature Resistance (Shade of Eranikus)

Blackrock Depths

Kindling Staff, Level 48, +25 Spirit, +10 Stamina, +15 Fire Resistance (Pyromancer

Loregrain)

Cyclopean Band, Level 49, +15 Spirit, +4 Intellect, +4 Strength (Ok'thor the Breaker)

Graverot Capt, Level 50, 36 Armour, +11 Stamina, +6 Spirit (Anub'shiah)

Chief Architect's Monocle, Level 50, 64 Armour, +27 Intellect, +10 Stamina, +3 Spirit

(Fineous Darkvire)

Blood-etched Blade, Level 52, 20.3 dps, chance on hit: causes 120 damage and converts

that damage into your mana (Doom'rel, Dope'rel, Hate'rel, Seeth'rel, Vile'rel)

Cape of the Fire Salamander, Level 53, 41 Armour, +16 Spirit, +5 Stamina, +7 Fire

Resistance (Ambassador Flamelash)

High Priestess Boots, Level 54, +20 Stamina, +7 Spirit, +10 Shadow Resistance (High

Priestess of Thaurissan)

Robes of the Royal Crown, Level 55, 85 Armour, +29 Spirit, +9 Intellect, +5 Stamina, +3

Sgility (Emperor Dagran Thaurissan)

Thaurissan's Royal Scepter, Level 55, +15 Spirit, +5 Intellect, +5 Stamina (Emperor

Dargan Thaurissan)

- 95 -


Blackrock Spire, Scholomance, and Stratholme

These 3 locations drop various pieces of the Devout, Magister’s and Dreadmist sets.

Devout is the priest focused set, with the total stat bonuses of +134 Intellect, +115 Spirit,

and +65 stamina. It also adds bonuses aimed at a priest for completion of part of the set.

The bonuses are:

3 pieces: Increases damage done by Shadow spells and effects by up to 5.

5 pieces: Increases damage done to Undead by magical spells and effects by up to 10.

6 pieces: +15 Shadow Resistance.

7 pieces: +20 Spirit.

8 pieces: Increases healing done by spells and effects by up to 50.

The Magister’s set is aimed at mages, and has the following main stats: +167 Intellect,

+82 Spirit, and +59 Stamina. The set bonuses are:

3 pieces: Increases damage done by Frost spells and effects by up to 5.

5 pieces: +5 Arcane Resistance.

5 pieces: +5 Fire Resistance.

5 pieces: +5 Frost Resistance.

6 pieces: Increases damage done by Arcane spells and effects by up to 15.

7 pieces: Increases damage done by Fire spells and effects by up to 20.

8 pieces: +10 Intellect.

8 pieces: Restores 8 mana every 5 sec.

The Dreadmist set is aimed at Warlocks and features the following stat bonuses: +124

Intellect, +95 Spirit, and +110 Stamina. The set bonuses are:

3 pieces: +4 Fire Resistance.

3 pieces: +4 Shadow Resistance.

5 pieces: Increases damage done to Demons by magical spells and effects by up to 10.

- 96 -


6 pieces: Increases damage done by Shadow spells and effects by up to 15.

7 pieces: Restores 2 health every 5 sec.

8 pieces: Increases the Attack Power of your pet by +40.

Dire Maul

Holy Bologna: What the Light Won't Tell You, starts a quest that leads to Royal Seal of

Eldre'Thalas, +10 Fire Resistance, +4 mana ever 5 sec., up to +30 healing (various)

Tempest Talisman, Level 53, +7 Intellect, +6 Spirit, +1% critical strike with spells

(Hydrospawn)

Whipvine Cord, Level 54, 47 Armour, +9 Intellect, +6 mana every 5 sec., up to +28 healing

(Alzzin the Wildshaper)

Ring of Demonic Guile, Level 54, +10 Intellect, +6 mana every 5 sec. (Alzzin the

Wildshaper)

Ring of Demonic Potency, Level 54, +10 Stamina, +4 health every 5 sec. (Alzzin the

Wildshaper)

Brightspark Gloves, Level 55, 53 Armour, +15 Intellect, +9 Stamina, +1% critical strike

with spells (Tsu'zee)

Band of the Hierophant, Level 55, +11 Spirit, +10 Intellect, +7 Stamina (The Razza)

Maiden's Circle, Level 55, +7 Intellect, +6 Spirit, up to +10 on magical damage and

healing (The Razza)

Mana Channeling Wand, Level 56, 60.9 dps, +4 mana every 5 sec. (Cho'Rush the

Observer)

Mindtap Talisman, Level 56, +11 mana every 5 sec. (Magister Kalendris)

Elder Magus Pendant, Level 56, +10 Intellect, +7 Spirit, +6 Stanmina (Magister Kalendris)

Padre's Trousers, Level 56, 76 Armour, +20 Intellect, +6 mana every 5 sec., up to +38

healing (Illyanna Ravenoak)

Robe of the Everlasting Night, Level 57, 88 Armour, +13 Intellect, +11 Stamina, +5 Spirit,

up to +19 on magical damage and healing (Immol'thar)

Cloak of the Cosmos, Level 57, 44 Armour, +11 Intellect, +7 Stamina, up to +24 healing

(Immol'thar)

Boots of the Full Moon, Level 57, 60 Armour, +12 Intellect, +12 Stamina, +9 Spirit, up to

+24 healing (Captain Kromcrush)

- 97 -


Emerald Flame Ring, Level 57, +12 Intellect, +8 Spirit, +7 Stamina, up to +14 healing

(Prince Tortheldrin)

Brightly Glowing Stone, Level 58, +7 Stamina, up to +34 healing (King Gordok)

Crown of the Ogre King, Level 58, 73 Armour, +18 Intellect, +16 Stamina, +11 Spirit, +1%

critical strike with spells (King Gordok)

End game, you basically want either the full Devout set for high spirit gear, or a

combination of the three, depending on situations. There are also two epic sets, the

Vestements of Prophecy and the Vestements of Transcendence. These only drop from

Molten Core and Onyxia, and are extremely hard to get, as it requires a 40 member raid to

complete this section.

Vestements of Prophecy (tier 1)

Boots of Prophecy

Binds when picked up

Feet Cloth

70 Armour

+8 Agility

+11 Intellect

+20 Spirit

+9 Stamina

+10 Fire Resistance

+10 Arcane Resistance

Requires Level 60

Circlet of Prophecy


Head Cloth

83 Armour

+23 Intellect

+23 Spirit

+15 Stamina

- 98 -


Requires Level 60

Passive: Increases damage done by Shadow spells and effects

by up to 15.

Passive: Increases healing done by spells and effects by up

to 20.

Use:

Girdle of Prophecy

Binds when equipped

Waist Cloth

57 Armour

+22 Intellect

+15 Spirit

+7 Nature Resistance

+8 Shadow Resistance

Requires Level 60


to 20.

Gloves of Prophecy


Hands Cloth

63 Armour

+10 Intellect

+22 Spirit

+6 Stamina

+5 Frost Resistance


Requires Level 60


by up to 15.

- 99 -


Pants of Prophecy


Legs Cloth

89 Armour

+10 Agility

+17 Intellect

+27 Spirit

+10 Stamina

+5 Fire Resistance



Requires Level 60


to 30.

Mantle of Prophecy


Shoulder Cloth

76 Armour

+3 Agility

+23 Intellect

+10 Spirit

+10 Stamina

+7 Frost Resistance

Requires Level 60


to 20.

Robes of Prophecy


Chest(Robe) Cloth

102 Armour

- 100 -


+24 Intellect

+23 Spirit

+20 Stamina

+5 Fire Resistance


+5 Frost Resistance



Requires Level 60


by up to 5.

Vambraces of Prophecy

Binds when equipped

Wrist Cloth

44 Armour

+11 Intellect

+15 Spirit

+3 Stamina

+5 Fire Resistance


Requires Level 60


to 20.

Set Bonuses:

3 pieces: -0.1 sec to the casting time of your Flash Heal spell.

5 pieces: Improves your chance to get a critical strike with Holy spells by 2%.

8 pieces: 15% chance your next Smite after casting Greater Heal requires -300 less mana

to cast.

- 101 -


Vestements of Transcendence (tier 2)

Belt of Transcendence


Waist Cloth

65 Armour

+25 Intellect

+17 Spirit

+8 Stamina

+6 Fire Resistance


Requires Level 60


to 20.

Bindings of Transcendence


Wrist Cloth

51 Armour

+13 Intellect

+23 Spirit

+9 Stamina

Requires Level 60

Boots of Transcendence


Feet Cloth

80 Armour

+6 Agility

+13 Intellect

+23 Spirit

+15 Stamina

- 102 -


Requires Level 60


by up to 15.

Halo of Transcendence


Head Cloth

94 Armour

+27 Intellect

+26 Spirit

+17 Stamina

+12 Fire Resistance



Requires Level 60

Handguards of Transcendence


Hands Cloth

72 Armour

+13 Intellect

+25 Spirit



Requires Level 60


to 30.

Leggings of Transcendence


Legs Cloth

101 Armour

- 103 -


+23 Intellect

+31 Spirit

+8 Stamina

+14 Frost Resistance


Requires Level 60


by up to 20.

Pauldrons of Transcendence


Shoulder Cloth

87 Armour

+4 Agility

+25 Intellect

+13 Spirit

+12 Stamina

+5 Fire Resistance


Requires Level 60


to 20.


by up to 10.

Robes of Transcendence


Chest(Robe) Cloth

116 Armour

+27 Intellect

+27 Spirit

+17 Stamina

- 104 -




Requires Level 60


to 40.

Set Bonuses:

3 pieces: Allows 15% of your Mana regeneration to continue while casting.

5 pieces: When struck in melee there is a 10% chance you will Fade for 4 seconds.

8 pieces: When you cast Greater Heal, you now automatically cast Renew (Rank 5) as

well for free.

As you can see, these are the ultimate items for any priest. The set bonuses on

Transcendence are simply amazing. I would suggest a final aim of 5 pieces of

Transcendence and 3 pieces of Prophecy to get the best of the set bonuses.

Keep in mind though that this gear is Molten Core and Onyxia only, and is extremely hard

to get. You can only raid these places once every 6 days, and even then you have to

contend with a number of other priests for the chance to get these items.

Now available, through an epic quest, is the ultimate staff for any priest, which can switch

between 2 forms. To start the quest you need a drop off Majordomo in the Molten Core

instance, another drop of Kazzak, and complete a trying quest.

The Benediction stats are as follows

59.3 Dps

+10 Stamina

+30 Intellect

+12 Spirit


Use: Calls forth Anathema

- 105 -


Equip: Increases the Critical chance of your holy spells by 2%

Equip: Increases healing done by spells and effects by up to 106

Anathema:

59.3 Dps

+22 Stamina

+31 Intellect


Use: Calls forth Benediction

Equip: Restores 7 mana every 5 seconds.

Equip: Increases damage done by Shadow Spells and effects by up to 69.

- 106 -


10. Appendix a

10.1. Skill listing

Name Category Mana Cast Range Description

Level 1

Lesser Heal Rank 1 Holy 35 1.50 40 yards Heal your target for 46 to 56.

Smite Rank 1 Holy 25 1.50 30 yards Smite an enemy for 13 to 17 Holy

damage.

Vampiric Embrace Rank 1

Shadow Magic 40 0.00 30 yards

Afflicts your target with Shadow energy that causes all party members to be healed for 20% of any Shadow damage you deal for 60 seconds.

Shoot Wands 0 0.00 30 yards Attack with an equipped wand.

Power Word: Fortitude Rank 1

Discipline 60 0.00 30 yards Power infuses the target increasing their Stamina by 3 for 30 minutes.

Level 4


Shadow Word: Pain Rank 1

Shadow Magic 25 0.00 30 yards A word of darkness that causes 30 Shadow damage over 18 seconds.

Level 6


damage.

Power Word: Shield Rank 1

Discipline 45 0.00 40 yards

Draws on the soul of the party member to shield them, absorbing 44 damage. Lasts 30 seconds. While the shield holds, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage. Once shielded, the target cannot be shielded again for 30 seconds.

Level 8

Renew Rank 1 Holy 30 0.00 40 yards Heals the target of 45 damage over

15 seconds.

Fade Rank 1 Shadow Magic 40 0.00 Self Only Fade out, discouraging enemies from

attacking you for 10 seconds.

Level 10

Resurrection Rank 1 Holy 0 10.00 30 yards

Brings a dead player back to life with 70 health and 135 mana. Cannot be cast when in combat.

*Desperate Prayer Rank 1

Holy 0 0.00 Self Only Instantly heals the caster for 134 to 170.


- 107 -


*Hex of Weakness Rank 1

Shadow Magic 45 0.00 30 yards Weakens the target enemy, reducing damage caused by -2 for 2 minutes.

*Touch of Weakness Rank 1

Shadow Magic 40 0.00 Self Only

The caster's next damaging melee attack will cause 8 additional Shadow damage and reduce the damage caused by that target by -2 for 2 minutes.

Mind Blast Rank 1 Shadow Magic 50 1.50 30 yards

Blasts the target for 39 to 43 Shadow damage, but causes a high amount of threat.



*Starshards Rank 1 Discipline 75 0.00 30 yards

Rains starshards down on the enemy target's head, causing 72 Arcane damage over 4 seconds.

Level 12



Inner Fire Rank 1 Discipline 20 0.00 Self Only

A burst of Holy energy fills the caster, increasing her attack power by 20 and Armour by 210 for 3 minutes.




Level 14


damage.


15 seconds.

Cure Disease Holy 60 0.00 30 yards Removes 1 diseases from the friendly target.

Psychic Scream Rank 1

Shadow Magic 100 0.00 Self Only The caster lets out a psychic scream, causing 2 nearby enemies to flee for 8 seconds.

Level 16

Heal Rank 1 Holy 170 3.00 40 yards Heal your target for 295 to 341.



Level 18

*Desperate Prayer Holy 0 0.00 Self Only Instantly heals the caster for 263 to

325.

- 108 -


Rank 2






Dispel Magic Rank 1 Discipline 75 0.00 30 yards

Dispels magic on the target, removing 1 harmful spells from a friend or 1 beneficial spells from an enemy.



Level 20


15 seconds.

Holy Fire Rank 1 Holy 110 5.00 30 yards

Consumes the enemy in flames that cause 90 to 116 Fire damage and an additional 28 Fire damage over 8 seconds.

*Fear Ward Holy 100 0.00 30 yards

Wards the friendly target against fear. The next fear effect used against the target will fail, using up the ward. Lasts 10 minutes.

Flash Heal Rank 1 Holy 125 1.50 40 yards Heals a friendly target for 193 to 237.

Touch of *Weakness Rank 2





*Shadowguard Rank 1 Shadow Magic 50 1.50 Self Only

The caster is surrounded by shadows. When a melee or ranged attacker hits the caster, the attacker will be struck for 20 Shadow damage. Attackers can only be damaged once every few seconds. 3 charges. Lasts 10 minutes.

*Devouring Plague Rank 1


Afflicts the target with a disease that causes 152 Shadow damage over 24 seconds. Damage caused by the Devouring Plague heals the caster.

Mind Flay Rank 1 Shadow Magic 45 0.00 20 yards

Assault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing 75 Shadow damage over 3 seconds and slowing the target

- 109 -


to 50% of their movement speed.

Fade Rank 2 Shadow Magic 75 0.00 Self Only

Fade out, discouraging enemies from attacking you for 10 seconds. More effective than Fade (rank 1).

Mind Soothe Rank 1 Shadow Magic 50 0.00 40 yards

Soothes the target, reducing the range at which it will attack you by -10 yards. Only affects targets level $v or lower. Lasts 15 seconds.

Shackle Undead Rank 1


Shackles the target undead enemy for up to 30 seconds. The shackled unit is unable to move, attack or cast spells. Any damage caused will release the target. Only one target can be shackled at a time.



Feedback Rank 1 Discipline 140 0.00 Self Only

Enchants the Priest's weapon to cause feedback on enemy targets. Each hit has a chance of draining 18 mana from the target. For each mana drained in this way, the target takes 1 damage.

*Elune's Grace Rank 1 Discipline 150 0.00 Self Only Reduces ranged damage taken by -7

for 3 minutes.

Level 22




damage.




Mind Vision Rank 1 Shadow Magic 65 0.00 100 yards Allows the caster to see through the

target's eyes for 60 seconds.

Level 24







Draws on the soul of the party member to shield them, absorbing 234 damage. Lasts 30 seconds. While the shield holds, spellcasting will not be interrupted by damage.

- 110 -


Once shielded, the target cannot be shielded again for 30 seconds.

Mana Burn Rank 1 Discipline 95 3.00 30 yards

Drains 191 to 203 mana from a target. For each mana drained in this way, the target takes 0.5 damage.

Level 26


15 seconds.








Level 28








Assault the target's mind with Shadow energy, causing 126 Shadow damage over 3 seconds and slowing the target to 50% of their movement speed.





Level 30

Prayer of Healing Rank 1

Holy 410 3.00 Self Only A powerful prayer heals nearby party members for 301 to 321.


damage.

Holy Fire Holy 170 5.00 30 yards Consumes the enemy in flames that

- 111 -


Rank 3 cause 164 to 208 Fire damage and an additional 48 Fire damage over 8 seconds.

*Shadow Protection Rank 1

Shadow Magic 250 0.00 30 yards Increases the target's resistance to Shadow spells by 30 for 10 minutes.

Mind Control Rank 1 Shadow Magic 350 3.00 20 yards

Controls a humanoid mind up to level 32, but slows its attack speed by -20%. Lasts up to 60 seconds.








*Feedback Rank 2 Discipline 245 0.00 Self Only







*Elune's Grace Rank 2 Discipline 230 0.00 Self Only Reduces ranged damage taken by -

11 for 3 minutes.

Level 32


15 seconds.

Abolish Disease Holy 100 0.00 30 yards Attempts to cure 1 disease 1 every 5

seconds for 20 seconds.




Level 34


- 112 -










Levitate Discipline 100 0.00 Self Only

Allows the caster to levitate, floating a few feet above the ground. While levitating, you will fall at a reduced speed and travel over water-like surfaces. Any damage will cancel the effect. Lasts 120 seconds.



Level 36
















Draws on the soul of the party member to shield them, absorbing 381 damage. Lasts 30 seconds. While the shield holds, spellcasting

- 113 -


will not be interrupted by damage. Once shielded, the target cannot be shielded again for 30 seconds.

Dispel Magic Rank 2 Discipline 125 0.00 30 yards

Dispels magic on the target, removing 2 harmful spells from a friend or 2 beneficial spells from an enemy.

Level 38


15 seconds.


damage.


Level 40



Greater Heal Rank 1 Holy 545 4.00 40 yards A slow casting spell that heals a

single target for 1201 to 1353.

Holy Nova Rank 1 Holy 225 0.00 Self Only

Causes an explosion of holy light around the caster, causing 96 to 105 Holy damage to all targets within 10 yards. The effect also temporarily reduces your threat level against nearby targets for 5 seconds.















- 114 -


Divine Spirit Rank 1 Discipline 420 0.00 30 yards







17 for 3 minutes.

Level 42









*Shadow Protection Rank 2









Level 44


15 seconds.



The caster is surrounded by shadows. When a melee or ranged attacker hits the caster, the attacker will be struck for 70 Shadow damage. Attackers can only be damaged once every few

- 115 -


seconds. 3 charges. Lasts 10 minutes.








Mind Vision Rank 2 Shadow Magic 150 0.00 Unlimited

Allows the caster to see through the target's eyes for 60 seconds. Will not work if the target is in another instance or on another continent.

Level 46




damage.





Level 48



Prayer of Fortitude Rank 1

Discipline 2600 0.00 30 yards Power infuses the party, increasing their Stamina by 43 for 60 minutes.








Level 50

Holy Nova Holy 290 0.00 Self Only Causes an explosion of holy light

- 116 -


Rank 2 around the caster, causing 135 to 147 Holy damage to all targets within 10 yards. The effect also temporarily reduces your threat level against nearby targets for 5 seconds.




15 seconds.




















23 for 3 minutes.

Level 52




The caster is surrounded by shadows. When a melee or ranged attacker hits the caster, the attacker will be struck for 90 Shadow damage. Attackers can only be damaged once every few

- 117 -


seconds. 3 charges. Lasts 10 minutes.










Level 54




damage.






Level 56



15 seconds.



Shadow Protection Rank 3




Level 58

Resurrection Rank 5 Holy 0 10.00 30 yards Brings a dead player back to life with

750 health and 1000 mana. Cannot

- 118 -


be cast when in combat.



Holy Nova Rank 3 Holy 345 0.00 Self Only

Causes an explosion of holy light around the caster, causing 171 to 188 Holy damage to all targets within 10 yards. The effect also temporarily reduces your threat level against nearby targets for 5 seconds.











Level 60















- 119 -









Prayer of Fortitude Rank 2

Discipline 3400 0.00 30 yards Power infuses the party, increasing their Stamina by 54 for 60 minutes.






29 for 3 minutes.






*Racial Spell

- 120 -

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